Realism vs. Idealism, relevant? (was Re: Trying to pin down compassion....)
Daryl
DharmaTroll (dharm...@my-deja.com) wrote...
>
DT:
>Rob claims (as does Daryl and others) that:
>
>(1) A natural, experiencial/empirical understanding of nature would
>render life meaningless. Therefore,
>(2) We should believe all sorts of nonsense and spookery and like after
>death or God or whatever your particular religions sells.
I do not, thou fusty dizzy-eyed dewberry. I merely recognize that
this can be the case for many or most people, and needlessly so,
because I don't think that Zen/Buddhist understanding requires that
one start from either an idealist or a realist position. All
views (even pragmatic 99.999999% realist certainties) need to be
"transcended", to make a long argument short.
Ya know DT, you and Ardie should get married. Such perfect
foils are hard to find. heh
DT:
>I claim that (1) is false; hence the motivation for (2) can be removed.
And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith and
that zealots of any stripe can put them at odds to the
detriment not the betterment of both. Thank God for Newton
and Einstein! Allelulia! See, no problem.
--
Daryl - 2 email me, remove the 2's
http://www.ajiva.com/daryl/rel/
DharmaTroll
kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
> DT:
> >Rob claims (as does Daryl and others) that:
> >
> >(1) A natural, experiencial/empirical understanding of nature
> > would render life meaningless. Therefore,
> >(2) We should believe all sorts of nonsense and spookery and like
> > after death or God or whatever your particular religions sells.
>
> I do not, thou fusty dizzy-eyed dewberry.
You do too, thou ruttish pox-marked pignut!
> I merely recognize that this can be the case for many or most
> people, and needlessly so, because I don't think that Zen/Buddhist
> understanding requires that one start from either an idealist or a
> realist position.
Hey, that's MY view, you thief!!! I just told Rob last weekend that:
DT: << I claim that Buddhism is about ending craving and suffering,
and about wrongly grasping after *ideas*, and does not make claims
about physics or metaphysics. If the world was solely a product of
mind, Buddhism would work just as well, in my view of Buddhism.
However, I also happen to have a view of physics much like that of
Feynman. Similarly, I think Buddhism is compatible with being either
a Republican or a Democrat. Do you understand what I'm saying here? >>
To claim that Buddhism rests upon *ANY* particular physics theory would
be terribly mistaken; to further make it rest on just about the most
absurd physics theory imaginable (that stars are created by minds)
would be ludicrous.
> All views (even pragmatic 99.999999% realist certainties) need to
> be "transcended", to make a long argument short.
No. Theories such as that "if I put my hand in the fire, it will get
burned" and "if I throw a ball it will travel in a parabolic curve"
don't need to be transcended. The point is to not be attached to views
or opinions; it is NOT a license to be a moron who sticks his hand on
the stove because he has 'transcended all views', you dissembling
doghearted flirt-gill!
> And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
> nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith
That's what I've been saying all along, bozo. Religious faith (unless
you mean blind faith) is a confidence in oneself and one's ability to
learn and grow. It has nothing to do with denying that trees exist.
> Ya know DT, you and Ardie should get married.
I'm a boy, you jarring half-faced lout! I can only marry a girl.
Unless you mean the gay stuff, but I wouldn't be able to bone Ardie up
the butt anyway, because he's jammed his own head up it so far that
there is no more room for anything else. Any more brilliant ideas?
--DT
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Daryl
DharmaTroll (dharm...@my-deja.com) wrote...
>
><< "The way in which simplicity comes in from supposing that there
> really are physical objects is easily seen. If the cat appears
> at one moment in one part of the room, and at another in
> another part, it is natural to suppose that it has moved from
> the one to the other, passing over a series of intermediate
> positions. But if it is merely a set of sense-data, it cannot
> have ever been in any place where I did not see it; thus we
> shall have to suppose that it did not exist at all while I was
> not looking, but suddenly sprang into being in a new place.
>
> If the cat exists whether I see it or not, we can understand
> from our own experience how it gets hungry between one meal and
> the next; but if it does not exist when I am not seeing it, it
> seems odd that appetite should grow during non-existence as
> fast as during existence. And if the cat consists only of
> sense-data, it cannot be hungry, since no hunger but my own can
> be a sense-datum to me. Thus the behaviour of the sense-data
> which represent the cat to me, though it seems quite natural
> when regarded as an expression of hunger, becomes utterly
> inexplicable when regarded as mere movements and changes of
> patches of colour, which are as incapable of hunger as
> triangle is of playing football." -- Bertrand Russell >>
Irrelevant. I'm not at all arguing that cats don't exist except
in my head, despite having signed "solipsistically yours" once
to amuse you, dear Trollpa. I'm arguing that there is
significance in fully understanding that _all we have of cats_
comes by way of sense impressions, and that any supposition that
we form about what causes those sense impressions is limited and
conditioned by our involvement in the act of perception. The
significance of it is that the same kind of understanding
can be applied to our _selves_.
Now just a word or two about all this idealism vs. realism
smoke that you blow around:
Both realists and idealists suffer from the same malady, a
malady which Buddhism addresses: the need for the belief that
we can know and thereby control our world, even to controlling
death by avoiding it. Faith in divine agencies that can
somehow be enlisted to in order to secure an afterlife is not
fundamentally different from faith that science will cure
death, or at least make it uncertain, or perhaps only ensure
that the human gene in general will continue, or that we will
have enough dandy toys to keep us distracted from death.
[Ref. "Ten Fetters": arupa-raga, rupa-raga]
Of course, realists will admit, even boast, that their
philosophy is more reasonable because it does not deny
relativity or uncertainty, but it's not the doctrine here
that counts, it's the motivation. Where the idealist would
hope to skip straight to "the absolute" the realist will be
satisfied with increasing degrees of nearness to it. The
idealist is looking for a hill so high that the floodwaters
will never reach it while the realist hopes to build the
dike faster than the floodwaters rise.
Realists like you have a blind spot in all of this: in
arguing for your philosophy with the "best" or "most
reasonable explanation" doctrine, rigourously true to the
admission that certainty is never absolute, you fail to
note that what motivates your *finding sufficiency* in the
doctrine is the faith that it actually reflects things as
they are. An actual real material independent existence
behind all the sense impressions is your metaphysics, and
it's not fundamentally different from the idealists' faith
in there being a first mover or Forms or whatever: it's
the urge to believe in bedrock in both cases, justified by
different piles of reasons.
So all that stuff about "realism cannot ever be proven" is
just a pose, a feigned blush or a dishonesty, when the
issue is _faith_.
Buddhism has long employed frameworks of discovery that
employ conceptions of divine (or ideal) agencies, and it
has done so with apparent success. The Buddha defeated
Mara, not cats and rocks and can openers, and he found
Nirvana, not just self-actualization or freedom from
emotional baggage. The same thing could possibly
(probably?) be done from within a realist framework, but
that is not the same as saying that it *must* be done
from within a realist framework, or even that a realist
framework is preferable. All this realism vs. idealism
stuff is really just a diversion, when ya get right down
to it.
Thus Gautama of Borg defeats both the troll AND the buzzard!
>In article <TGU46.5$Ej....@news.eol.ca>,
> kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
>
>First, let's skip to the end and mention your true motivation, Daryl:
>
>> It seems that you would turn Buddhism into nothing more than
>> 2500 year old psychotherapy...."this mind is clear".
>
>This is your fear. Start a new thead and let's discuss it. You, like so
>many others here, argue that, "I'm so afraid that Buddhism will be
>reduced to something meaningless, that I'll believe all sorts of
>nonsense, from spooks and spook-worlds to denial of the existence of
>the tree in my backyard." Face your fears and go into them instead of
>clinging to your petty superstitions, oh cowerdly one.
>
>> Horsefeathers, you currish pottle-deep giglet.
>
>Now you're talkin' my language! Woo hoo!
>
>Anyway, another thread about your fear that compels you to cling to
>irrational beliefs is in order, but here I will only defend common
>sense against your denial of the existence of cats, trees, stones, and
>stars. Re-read the above quote. My claim is that realism is a much,
>much simpler and more plausible explanation than idealism. Your not
>accepting this is not based on reason or evidence, but only on your
>irrational fears in the end that without absurd superstitions, Buddhism
>would be rendered meaningless. Those fears are not justified, and you
>can relax: Buddhism is indeed helpful and meaningful without having to
>be supernatural (against-science) in any way. To think that to be a
>Buddhist is to be against science and to deny reality is to be a fool.
>
>DT:
>>> I'm not talking about objectivism. I'm talking about common sense
>>> realism, that cats, trees, stones, and stars exist physically
>>> apart from thoughts about them or ideas or minds.
>
>> Actually, to an objectivist, everything appears as an object
>> to be bought or sold. (Ayn Rand etc.)
>
>Yes, I know, and that is irrelevant, because it is about how we
>*relate* to the world, rather than the simple physical existense of
>things in the world. Actually, my deepest point is that Buddhism is
>*only* concerned with our relationships to the world, and not with the
>physics of the world.
>
>That is, I claim that to think that Buddhism involves denying physical
>existence to cats, stones, trees, and stars is absurd; rather, I claim
>that Buddhism only deals with our relationship to our environment, and
>not with physical or metaphysical claims about rocks, trees, cats, and
>stars. Buddhism claims that these are not self-existing, meaning that
>they are not prime-movers or uncaused causes, or completely self-
>caused, or eternal essenses, but rather are interrelated and only arise
>together in a context. Physics is in total agreement with this, and
>there is no problem. Claiming that the physical world is non-existant
>and that only minds or thoughts exist (whatever they might be) is not
>implied and is a bad assumption.
>
>In in this thread, I am arguing that idealism, or a mind-only theory,
>or transcendental monism, is more complex a theory and involves more
>assumptions than does common sense realism. I'm saying that idealism is
>logically possible, and that realism cannot ever be proven, but that
>realism is more likely to be true, and a heck of a lot more likely. I
>will defend my claim below.
>
>> But to the point at hand. Oh, wait while I light my pipe.
>
>Dammit, Daryl: I keep telling you that tobacco is associated with
>cancer and heart disease, but you keep telling me that it's all in my
>mind, and that the tobacco companies say that there is only a
>correlation that we associate with certain sense-impressions, but I
>tell you that this correlation between smoking and cancer is strong
>enough to infer that it is harmful to your health. You are in denial.
>
>> Puff puff...that's better...
>
>It's your lungs, fool. You're gonna die coughing.
>
>> Ya sure, I know, "stand in front of a truck and it'll seem pretty
>> physical"
>
>No. I say, "stand in front of a truck and you will DIE". Got it?
>
>> ...but that only holds water if one has _already_ accepted the
>> notion and interprets the experience _through_ it...
>
>No. Stick an idealist in front of a truck and watch: he will DIE.
>Doesn't matter what ideas he accepts or rejects.
>The truck flattens his idealist ass.
>
>> nothing is demonstrated except that the sign-convention we
>> associate with certain repetitive sense impressions has been
>> successful once again.
>
>Agreed. Read my posts again about how we never prove any theory, only
>improve or disprove. But this correlation is good enough for us to
>rationally accept (with 99 percent plus confidence) that smoking is bad
>for your health. And that cats and trees and stones and stars exist.
>
>> And more, perhaps, that those things are unreal within the
>> framework of your "common sense realism" since they are not
>> truly separate from those who experience them.
>
>But they are separate. The stars that existed 12 or 13 billion years
>ago were not observed. But that doesn't mean we have any good reason to
>claim that they never existed.
>
>I'm claiming that the best explanation for our consistent experiences
>is that they are *correlated* with something outside of our experiences
>and our minds. I claim that this can never be proved or demonstrated,
>(so don't keep repeating what I already claim,) but that it is the best
>explanation. See the quote at the top of this post.
>
>> Puff puff...
>
>Really, Daryl, this denial of reality is going to do you in.
Reality is YOUR religion. ;)
Daryl
DharmaTroll (dharm...@my-deja.com) wrote...
>
>In article <Qd856.9$Ej....@news.eol.ca>,
> kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
>
>> DT:
>> >Rob claims (as does Daryl and others) that:
>> >
>> >(1) A natural, experiencial/empirical understanding of nature
>> > would render life meaningless. Therefore,
>> >(2) We should believe all sorts of nonsense and spookery and like
>> > after death or God or whatever your particular religions sells.
>>
>> I do not, thou fusty dizzy-eyed dewberry.
>
>You do too, thou ruttish pox-marked pignut!
:)
>> I merely recognize that this can be the case for many or most
>> people, and needlessly so, because I don't think that Zen/Buddhist
>> understanding requires that one start from either an idealist or a
>> realist position.
>
>Hey, that's MY view, you thief!!! I just told Rob last weekend that:
>
>DT: << I claim that Buddhism is about ending craving and suffering,
>and about wrongly grasping after *ideas*, and does not make claims
>about physics or metaphysics. If the world was solely a product of
>mind, Buddhism would work just as well, in my view of Buddhism.
>However, I also happen to have a view of physics much like that of
>Feynman. Similarly, I think Buddhism is compatible with being either
>a Republican or a Democrat. Do you understand what I'm saying here? >>
Ya, they're pretty much the same, but it's not compatible with
being a Tory.
>To claim that Buddhism rests upon *ANY* particular physics theory would
>be terribly mistaken;
Agreed.
>to further make it rest on just about the most
>absurd physics theory imaginable (that stars are created by minds)
>would be ludicrous.
Disagreed. That might even be preferable.
>> All views (even pragmatic 99.999999% realist certainties) need to
>> be "transcended", to make a long argument short.
>
>No. Theories such as that "if I put my hand in the fire, it will get
>burned" and "if I throw a ball it will travel in a parabolic curve"
>don't need to be transcended. The point is to not be attached to views
>or opinions; it is NOT a license to be a moron who sticks his hand on
>the stove because he has 'transcended all views', you dissembling
>doghearted flirt-gill!
transcending != ignoring, thou ruttish beetle-headed harpy!
>> And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
>> nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith
>
>That's what I've been saying all along, bozo. Religious faith (unless
>you mean blind faith) is a confidence in oneself and one's ability to
>learn and grow. It has nothing to do with denying that trees exist.
Well, it's more than that measly definition you give above, too.
>> Ya know DT, you and Ardie should get married.
>
>I'm a boy, you jarring half-faced lout! I can only marry a girl.
>
>Unless you mean the gay stuff, but I wouldn't be able to bone Ardie up
>the butt anyway, because he's jammed his own head up it so far that
>there is no more room for anything else. Any more brilliant ideas?
No...I'm laughing too hard to think!
(but I did post another more combative message for your amusement)
B^0
Well, you could always try removing it, but you'd probably have to
set an example to get the message across since words don't seem to
be sufficent.
B)
DharmaTroll
kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
> I'm not at all arguing that cats don't exist except in my head,
DT:
Good. Once again, I am only arguing that they 'exist', and I am not
making claims about what we *know* about them, except that we can only
know a very little about them.
DT:
>> If you disappear, the moon will still exist. Again, you are
>> confusing the epistemic issue (what you know or experience)
>> with the ontological issue (what there is), and you are the
>> one assuming (quite wrongly) that what you experience and
>> what there is share a common domain.
So Daryl, you seem to agree with me on this. (I think the most
important point is to never confuse the ontological issue with the
epistemic ones. Once you conflate them, then idealism makes sense: but
if you don't conflate them, then idealism doesn't have a leg to stand
on.)
> I'm arguing that there is significance in fully understanding
> that _all we have of cats_ comes by way of sense impressions,
Yes, that is what Bertrand Russell says, and I agree fully.
> and that any supposition that we form about what causes those
> sense impressions is limited and conditioned by our involvement
> in the act of perception.
Right. I agree as well. But then we have to go on and test our limited
suppositions, and see what happens. That's how we learn more. Hence,
our knowing is always to a degree.
It seems that you agree with just about all my points, Daryl, and then
you do this mind-reading stuff where you arbitrarily project all sorts
of nasty motivations, dispositions, and intentions onto people. So
whereas I give you *some* credit for acknowledging that I am right
about almost every point (as usual), you are still mind-reading all
sorts of nonsense onto others and trying to conflate this issue with
irrelevant issues: therefore I still proclaim you to be a gorbellied
fool-born hugger-mugger!
> Both realists and idealists suffer from the same malady, a
> malady which Buddhism addresses: the need for the belief that
> we can know and thereby control our world,
Pish! Asserting that trees and cats exist has nothing to do with
controlling the world.
In fact, realism is a harsh confession that we are *not* in control.
Whereas the idealist can say that everything is created by his mind or
thoughts (and thus is ultimately in his control), the realist cannot.
If the truck hits me, I get squished. Belief in life after death is
another way to be in control, that somehow I can escape death. Yet by
not going for spooks or gods or reincarnation, I am not in control and
am not a spook who can 'choose' to be reborn in some unlucky vagina.
Rather, I am a fragile biological system that can easily be flattened
by a mack-truck.
Again, Daryl, you have added your own stereotypes to the mix. What you
are saying about being in control is not a necessary condition of
asserting that cats, trees, stones, and stars actually exist, whether I
perceive them or not.
> faith that science will cure death,
What are you talking about? Please quote any passage where I ever have
claimed that I had 'faith' that 'science' would 'cure' death forever?
Rather, science *accepts* death, and doesn't claim that we reincarnate
back here or in heaven or wherever. Again, that comment is in left
field. It's religion, not science, that is in denial of death.
> or that we will have enough dandy toys to keep us distracted
> from death.
Having toys has nothing to do with scientific realism and asserting
that cats, trees, stones, and stars exist. Also, being able to cure
some illnesses and sometimes save lives is a wonderful thing. My dad
would be dead if his prostate cancer hadn't been cured by his being
nuked with the most sophisticated radiation therapy available, and now
he is in perfect health, and may live to be 90 or 100.
> it's not the doctrine here that counts, it's the motivation.
While I agree with this point, you then wrongly attribute bad, silly
motivations to whomever you want, and that is just projection, Daryl.
> Realists like you have a blind spot in all of this: in
> arguing for your philosophy with the "best" or "most
> reasonable explanation" doctrine, rigourously true to the
> admission that certainty is never absolute, you fail to
> note that what motivates your *finding sufficiency*
Yes, I spelled out exactly what this was, thou impertinent bat-fowling
bum-bailey!
The best explanation is the theory which fits the data best given all
that we know at the time. I also pointed out that what we know may
change tomorrow, which is why we never, ever take any theory as proven,
and admit that all theories could be uprooted tomorrow. Any scientist
will tell you that the history of science consists of trashing accepted
theories and replacing them. (Religion is just the opposite, and deals
with clinging to beliefs in the face of absurdity.)
> An actual real material independent existence behind all the sense
> impressions is your metaphysics, and it's not fundamentally
> different from the idealists' faith in there being a first mover
Oh yes it is! An idealist would have to explain how I recreate the tree
each time I walk out my back door. Realism is simpler: I simply say
that if there were a tree there whether I were there or not, then the
tree would simply have remained there, and I wouldn't have to explain
how I whisked it out of existence and then back into existence.
In the same way, Kepler's eliptical orbits of the planets around the
sun are a much simpler explanation than Ptolomy's theory with the Earth
at the center and all the epicycles or circles rolling on circles to
explain the zig-zag retrograde motion of the planets across the sky.
Daryl, you don't want to look at these issues, but merely mind-read
your silly stereotypes into people and make assumptions about their
motivations or values. That is unwarranted and none of your crap
applies to these claims.
> the urge to believe in bedrock in both cases,
No urges. Just the best explanation given what we know at present.
> So all that stuff about "realism cannot ever be proven" is
> just a pose, a feigned blush or a dishonesty, when the
> issue is _faith_.
Agian, no faith involved at all. Daryl, you have conceded every one of
my main points, and now you try to babble about faith, which has
nothing at all to do with Kepler's theories being better than Ptolomy's.
Inference to the best explanation is never the same as "proving" that
anything is correct. Every scientific theory is open to falsification
and can be replaced by a stronger theory which better fits the data.
Consider my all-time favourite example:
DT (last week):
>> The power of science is that it never ever goes for certainty,
>> and any theory could be falsified tomorrow with new evidence.
>> Newton's theories were replaced with Einstein's for example,
>> when Einstein demonstrated in a critical test during a solar
>> eclipse in 1919, that the curvature of space bent the light from
>> stars that came close to the sun. Einstein's theory was not
>> 'proved', but Newton's was disproved, and so Einstein's is now
>> accepted as the best theory to date. His general theory of
>> relativity may be disproven next year, or next century, with a
>> similar critical test, but no theory is ever, ever 'proven'.
Man, I love that example about the eclipse!!! But anyway, as you see,
Daryl, no faith involved in the blind-faith sense. Just a confidence
based on the data and having the best explanation, as well as a
willingness to trash it all if new evidence and/or a better theory
comes along tomorrow. A willingness not found in religious believers.
> Buddhism has long employed frameworks of discovery that
> employ conceptions of divine (or ideal) agencies, and it
> has done so with apparent success.
Christianity has success with God and souls and heaven as well.
But that success is not the same kind of success that Einstein had
after testing his theory against Newton's at that solar eclipse.
In fact, where Buddhism does test out is in meditation practise, where
one *can* test the results of logging in the hours and doing the
practise. In that sense, it works, and you don't need any deities.
(Interestingly, what is practical to our actual lives can *always* be
tested, because anything that cannot be tested is therefore not
grounded in our experience. That's why all non-testable, i.e. non-
falsifiable, claims are meaningless in the end, except as metaphors,
but that's another issue.)
You can cultivate mindfulness and be kind and mindful throughout the
day and see if it has effects on you. That's real Buddhism, not all the
comic-book crap about deities or psychic powers or life after death.
> The Buddha defeated Mara, not cats and rocks and can openers,
And Mara is a metaphor for conditioned thoughts and habits.
> and he found Nirvana, not just self-actualization or freedom
Nirvana isn't a thing that can be *found*, you impertinent bat-fowling
bum-bailey! Rather, nirvana is simply the non-arising of craving and
suffering. No goo-goo-ka-choo. Just yucky stuff failing to arise
anymore.
Nirvana is only described in negative terms -- that is, in terms of
what doesn't show up any longer. Nothing is *added* or *found*. Only a
burden is lifted. As one Zen master put it metaphorically, nirvana is
just like ordinary life, except one is a half-inch up off the ground.
aeho...@my-deja.com
>
> And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
> nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith and
> that zealots of any stripe can put them at odds to the
> detriment not the betterment of both. Thank God for Newton
> and Einstein! Allelulia! See, no problem.
>
Empiricism can only give us probable, mundane
knowledge溶ever certain knowledge. From another angle,
empiricism is just a protocol, or a manner of speaking about
already intellectually synthesized events. But how we synthesize
raw sensory data (granted, there is such a thing), combine it with
other syntheses so as to arrange it, categorize it, etc., is not at all
given in the domain of empiricism葉his belongs properly to the
science of theology (i.e., first principles).
- Ae
aeho...@my-deja.com
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <dxe56.13$Ej.1...@news.eol.ca>,
> kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
>
> > I'm not at all arguing that cats don't exist except in my head,
>
> DT:
> Good. Once again, I am only arguing that they 'exist', and I am not
> making claims about what we *know* about them, except that we
can only
> know a very little about them.
So this is your epistemology, that they "exist" (and perhaps YOU
exist) and that is about all we can know? Goodness, you're
Cartesian!
- Ae
DharmaTroll
aeho...@my-deja.com wrote:
> So this is your epistemology, that they "exist"
> (and perhaps YOU exist)
DT:
Nope. I've never seen a 'YOU'. That is just a useful fictional term,
much like 'center of gravity', which is a powerful organising
principle. Whereas yes, I assert that cats, trees, stones, and stars do
indeed exist physically, and are not merely your thoughts.
> and that is about all we can know?
DT:
Actually, I'm not saying we can 'know' anything for sure. It is always
a matter of degree, Ardie.
> Goodness, you're Cartesian!
DT:
Well, Descartes claimed we could know a lot of things, and had several
proofs of God. Actually, I go for Descartes when he questioned
everything, but once he started making positive assertions, starting
with a self/soul, then he lost it. Actually, I'm a more of a Humean.
Btw, Ardie, this is now the 7th time you've randomly thrown out some
philosopher's name rather and not followed up with anything. Even
though you are rather psychotic, I would think you would have some
interesting ideas to contribute on all these guys you mention. For
example, you never followed up on your comments on Heidegger, below.
--DT
<<
In article <3A365C00...@buddhist.com>,
aeholling <hs...@buddhist.com> wrote:
> DharmaTroll wrote:
>
> > Moving forward to the 20th century, we have Alfred Korzybski's neo-
> > Kantian dictum that "The map is not the territory"; or, as Gregory
> > Bateson further explained, "a mental representation is not the thing
> > represented."
Ardie:
> The above errs. For us, the "thing", when it become 'equipment'
> (cf. Heidegger), is almost entirely representational.
DT:
Pish! While Heigegger is a phenomenologist, claiming that some
philosopher at some point in history has a different point of view
hardly means that I have erred. Really, Ardie! You can be so silly.
> Bateson should understand that it is exceedingly difficult to peel
> off the categories of reason from the thing itself.
DT:
Sure. Maybe it is impossible for us. But that again is an epistemic
problem about our knowing, and not an ontological problem about the
actual universe.
Heidegger discerned between things that were present-at-hand, which is
just plain stuff, and ready-to-hand, which is the equipment you are
talking about, and Dasein, or a sentient being whose being is at issue
for it.
The point of 'equipment' for Heidegger was that we subjectively know
things first and most prior as ready-to-hand. An example is that your
computer is known for its function and our relationship to it. Only
when the darn thing crashes does it then reveal itself as stuff or as a
present-at-hand object. But Heidegger's view again is from a
phenomenology perspective, and is from a subjective point of view, and
not a scientific one. Both views are important in dealing with
different issues.
The coolest thing about Heidegger's talk of 'equipment' is that it
renders everything interconnected in what he called a 'referential
context'. Interestingly, this very much correlates to Dependent
Origination. Let me explain.
According to Heidegger, there cannot be a self-existing hammer, all by
itself. A 'hammer' can only be a hammer because of its function (as
equipment) of hammering. To understand a hammer, you also have to
understand 'nail' and 'wood'. But that's not all. You also have to
understand people and human needs, such as the human need for shelter.
The whole thing mushrooms, and it turns out that there can't be a
hammer without the whole universe existing in relation to it.
In this sense, the world of *concepts* is completely interdependent and
consciousness and human culture is needed for its existence. However,
when we are talking about the physical world, which existed before we
came along with all our concepts, abstractions, and symbols, then we
are talking about a different matter (no pun intended).
> Some would argue that it can't be done; that even the thing itself
> is abstract thought (pure being or the same, pure nothing).
DT:
Yet that is exactly the kind of nonsense that Bateson and Korzybski are
warning us about: confusing the map with the territory. To claim that
the thing itself is abstract thought is to eat the menu and not the
meal. What is known as a use/mention error. Such mental masturbation
about 'pure being' and 'pure nothing' and equating them is laughable
nonsense. Just the play of words.
--DT
NeoLazarus
DharmaTroll wrote:
...that's because the view from the projector is much better from
a half-inch higher.
<rim shot!>
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
DharmaTroll
aeho...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Empiricism can only give us probable, mundane knowledge-
> never certain knowledge.
Correct. There is no such thing as 'certain knowledge'.
You could always be being deceived by Descartes' genie.
In fact, the very idea of certain knowledge is incoherent.
Only in tautologies, where something is defined in some way, is there
certainty, and then it is trivial.
> [blah-blah-blah] science of theology (i.e., first principles).
>
> - Ae
Theology is not a science. It is the antithesis of science, asserting
superstitious assumptions and then gaming from there. Theology is no
more of a science than is playing Dungeons and Dragons, Ardie, thou
lumpish hell-hated malt-worm.
--DT
Daryl
aeho...@my-deja.com (aeho...@my-deja.com) wrote...
By the way Ardie, I still intend to look up that book you
recommended, Scientism and Values. Some nice theologians
I know gave me some gift certificates for books (no kidding)
so I hope it's currently available.
I'm not big on first principles as you probably know, but
I still think they can be instructive.
Daryl
DharmaTroll (dharm...@my-deja.com) wrote...
I will be replying DT but my newsserver is infirm of purpose
so I probably won't get the thread position right.
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll wrote: <<In fact, the very idea of certain knowledge is
incoherent.>>
How do you support such an assertion? The claimed "certain knowledge",
whatever it is, may be not certain at all, may be wholly illusory, but
how is it incoherent?
DT: <<Only in tautologies, where something is defined in some way, is
there certainty, and then it is trivial.>>
Any hypothetical-deductive system is a tautology, such as mathematical
systems, but they need not be trivial. Some such tautologies are very
powerful in their application to real life, like Euclidean geometry with
normal life, Riemannian geometry with Einsteinian relativity theory,
Lobatschevkian geometry with quantum mechanics in sub-atomic
particle-waves, etc.
And they are limited by uncertainty, as with Gödelian indecidability:
some deductions from a hypothetical-deductive system (i. e., from a
tautology) cannot be demonstrated or refuted within the system. In lay
terms, we don't know whether they belong to the system within which they
are deduced or not.
DT, you get your categories all tangled up.
Tang Huyen
Dirk Bruere
"DharmaTroll" <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:933plo$s0m$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> To claim that Buddhism rests upon *ANY* particular physics theory would
> be terribly mistaken; to further make it rest on just about the most
> absurd physics theory imaginable (that stars are created by minds)
> would be ludicrous.
I see you never did look up Wheelers Delayed Choice experiment.
Conventional:
http://dhushara.tripod.com/book/quantcos/qphil/qphil.htm
Speculative stuff:
John Archibald Wheeler's "delayed choice experiment", now confirmed in the
laboratory, shows that, if we use the traditional Bohr Copenhagen
interpretation of quantum theory, then whether a photon acts as a wave or a
particle in the past depends on the future freewill choice of a conscious
observer. In other words, the conscious choice acts backward in time. Brain
experiments by Ben Libet of the University of California show that if there
is free will, then it has to act backward in time for about one second. In
other words, our conscious intention seems to depend on Wheeler's quantum
delayed choice effect.
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v12n4a1.html for more
weirdness
Gassho
Dirk
GeirSmith
If I weren't a preacher I'd be making words with you guys. And getting a part
time job at Mad magasine.
Above : Eureka. CNN's wrong ! Harry Potter's not indicated by the books
reaching the "Beasty" number of 66,6 million. It's for the spring (sells around
10 million a month) when It reaches 99,9etc. million. Oh oh ! Funny that's when
they'll be putting his "biggest site ever created" on line : called Hogwarth
something school. These kid things bore me. Boo boo !
Bye guys !
GeirSmith
>Date: 06/01/01 15:47 Paris, Madrid
>Message-id: <AcG56.58113$ca6.9...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>
Can't figure out why guys like you who read like crazy don't study the
authority of Tantrism for the West that Tucci is. Or why study tibetan culture
then ?
DharmaTroll
Tang Huyen <tang_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> DharmaTroll wrote:
> <<In fact, the very idea of certain knowledge is incoherent.>>
>
> How do you support such an assertion? The claimed
> "certain knowledge", whatever it is, may be not certain at all,
> may be wholly illusory,
Yes, that's my point.
> but how is it incoherent?
Simple. You have to claim with certainty that it is not illusory, and
then you have to claim with certainty that your claim with certainty
that it was not illusory is also not illusory, and then you have to
claim that *that* claim you know with certainty, and you have yourself
one of those infinite regresses.
> DT: <<Only in tautologies, where something is defined in some way,
> is there certainty, and then it is trivial.>>
>
> Any hypothetical-deductive system is a tautology, such as
> mathematical systems, but they need not be trivial. Some such
> tautologies are very powerful in their application to real life,
> like Euclidean geometry with normal life, Riemannian geometry...
>
> DT, you get your categories all tangled up.
>
> Tang Huyen
Not really. I was talking about our knowing things, such as that deep
inside you are really the Big Self, the Anima Mundi, as the folks you
call Shamanists/Brahmanists claim, or that God is Love, or any of those
claims with capital letters that people claim to know with certainty.
I have no complaints with your demonstrations of how useful deduction
and induction is in mathematics and so forth.
DharmaTroll
kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
> By the way Ardie, I still intend to look up that book you
> recommended, Scientism and Values. Some nice theologians
> I know gave me some gift certificates for books (no kidding)
> so I hope it's currently available.
Daryl, thou vain tardy-gaited wagtail, why would you waste your money
on that kind of crap when there are so many wonderful books out there.
A 40-year-old collections of ultra-right-wing essays attacking the
attempt to bring rigour and legitimacy to social sciences?
A review for the book says that the book attacks: "a belief that men
are like animals or machines with characteristics that can be predicted
and/or controlled by technocratic elites. This leads ultimately to an
extremely coercive collective system where the government stifles
individuality for the benefit of "society". -- (Bill Clinton has
publicly endorsed this socialist "organic" theory of society)."
If you want to read this stuff, I can save you ten bucks: just go back
and re-read all of Omadman's posts, and then re-read all of his posts
in his past life as KiSSer. Except that KiSSer is left wing and calls
it 'facism' instead of right-wingers in this book who call
it 'socialism'. But left-wing, right-wing -- who cares? Wing-nuts are
wing-nuts, no matter which limb they are out on. Blah!
--DT
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll wrote: <<Simple. You have to claim with certainty that it is
not illusory, and then you have to claim with certainty that your claim
with certainty that it was not illusory is also not illusory, and then you
have to claim that *that* claim you know with certainty, and you have
yourself one of those infinite regresses.>>
You have lost touch with reality, my lad. You were born from a mother and a
father, live by eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, breathing, and will
die. Those are bits certain knowledge. There is no incoherence or infinite
regress involved.
Or do you join the Tantric clique of Kent Sandvik who claims that
everything is projection, ageing and death included?
Kent Sankvik said in "Re: How to Stay Young and Beautiful Forever",
09/27/1999: <<According to the what most of Tibetan consider the highest
view, Prasangika-Madhyamika, everything is a projection, including aging
and death. See Nagarjuna et rest for the details and the explanations, they
do a good job at this. When someone then has this understanding, one needs
to learn how to make use of all this, and this is where the need to
understand the forces of cause and action, and to make use of those forces
rather than be blindly lead by not understanding them is then the key.>>
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll
"Dirk Bruere" <art...@kbnet.co.uk> wrote:
> I see you never did look up Wheelers Delayed Choice experiment.
> http://dhushara.tripod.com/book/quantcos/qphil/qphil.htm
This is a really good article, Dirk.
While I think that claiming that this has anything to do with
"free will" is far-fetched, it's very helpful and I haven't finished it
yet, but it certainly is a well-written article.
epste...@my-deja.com
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <Qd856.9$Ej....@news.eol.ca>,
> kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
>
> > DT:
> > >Rob claims (as does Daryl and others) that:
> > >
> > >(1) A natural, experiencial/empirical understanding of nature
> > > would render life meaningless. Therefore,
> > >(2) We should believe all sorts of nonsense and spookery and like
> > > after death or God or whatever your particular religions sells.
> >
> > I do not, thou fusty dizzy-eyed dewberry.
>
> You do too, thou ruttish pox-marked pignut!
>
> > I merely recognize that this can be the case for many or most
> > people, and needlessly so, because I don't think that Zen/Buddhist
> > understanding requires that one start from either an idealist or a
> > realist position.
>
> Hey, that's MY view, you thief!!! I just told Rob last weekend that:
>
> DT: << I claim that Buddhism is about ending craving and suffering,
> and about wrongly grasping after *ideas*, and does not make claims
> about physics or metaphysics. If the world was solely a product of
> mind, Buddhism would work just as well, in my view of Buddhism.
> However, I also happen to have a view of physics much like that of
> Feynman.
Feynman hates you, man.
Similarly, I think Buddhism is compatible with being either
> a Republican or a Democrat. Do you understand what I'm saying here? >>
No.
> To claim that Buddhism rests upon *ANY* particular physics theory would
> be terribly mistaken; to further make it rest on just about the most
> absurd physics theory imaginable (that stars are created by minds)
> would be ludicrous.
>
> > All views (even pragmatic 99.999999% realist certainties) need to
> > be "transcended", to make a long argument short.
>
> No. Theories such as that "if I put my hand in the fire, it will get
> burned" and "if I throw a ball it will travel in a parabolic curve"
> don't need to be transcended. The point is to not be attached to views
> or opinions; it is NOT a license to be a moron who sticks his hand on
> the stove because he has 'transcended all views', you dissembling
> doghearted flirt-gill!
>
> > And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
> > nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith
>
> That's what I've been saying all along, bozo. Religious faith (unless
> you mean blind faith) is a confidence in oneself and one's ability to
> learn and grow. It has nothing to do with denying that trees exist.
>
> > Ya know DT, you and Ardie should get married.
>
> I'm a boy, you jarring half-faced lout! I can only marry a girl.
>
> Unless you mean the gay stuff, but I wouldn't be able to bone Ardie up
> the butt anyway, because he's jammed his own head up it so far that
> there is no more room for anything else.
ha ha! that's good. But I'll bet there's still enough room for your
tiny head in there.
Any more brilliant ideas?
uh......open your mind?
epste...@my-deja.com
Very very well put. But DT won't be able to hear you, I predict. Even
though I tend to come down on the idealist side, I understand what you're
saying and I accept your critique. Every form of escape takes one out of
the firing line of the truth.
You explained very well how the *motivation* to find certainty in the
changing world is the hope of the 'realist', as opposed to engaging
Buddhism within a realistic framework.
Thanks for your insight.
Robert
Dirk Bruere
It's a newish slant on the free will question - retro causation.
It adds some interesting possibilities.
BTW, if such did exist then free will would also manifest itself as a
skewing of probabilities in what should be random sequences. Psi?
Gassho
Dirk
epste...@my-deja.com
Oh my God, I just had a sudden insight! You're a fucking scientist!
You're a science-hog. What do you do for a living, Troll? 'Fess up! No
wonder you're so steeped in reductionist positivist horseshit. It's what
you do for a living!
Well I agree with that. Sorry, but I do.
> > The Buddha defeated Mara, not cats and rocks and can openers,
>
> And Mara is a metaphor for conditioned thoughts and habits.
>
> > and he found Nirvana, not just self-actualization or freedom
>
> Nirvana isn't a thing that can be *found*, you impertinent bat-fowling
> bum-bailey! Rather, nirvana is simply the non-arising of craving and
> suffering. No goo-goo-ka-choo. Just yucky stuff failing to arise
> anymore.
>
> Nirvana is only described in negative terms -- that is, in terms of
> what doesn't show up any longer. Nothing is *added* or *found*. Only a
> burden is lifted. As one Zen master put it metaphorically, nirvana is
> just like ordinary life, except one is a half-inch up off the ground.
a half-inch off the ground doesn't describe someone who is 'free of
burdens'. It describes someone who is no longer bound by this life,
someone who is 'in the world but not of it'. That is somewhat different
than just having no sufferings arise. It is that plus being in a
different relation to reality. Not that it disappears, oh lover of straw
men, but that it is no longer binding.
Robert
epste...@my-deja.com
Thanks for that thought, and well put.
epste...@my-deja.com
Heidegger winds up making a whole bunch of lofty assertions about Being
that put my idealism to shame. He is truly an abstract generalist, which
is where he leaves phenomenology behind and gets into the whole muck of
existentialism.
When Sartre wrote 'The Transcendence of the Ego' (doesn't mean what it
sounds like) he was on a solid descriptive ground of how one's self is
perceived as existing but then turns out to be an opaque construct of
thought. But then he goes to BEING AND NOTHINGNESS (which he wrote on
mescaline) and jumps into a sea of ridiculously metaphoric abstractions.
Just like your old buddy Descartes, who starts out trying to be rigorous
and then makes a stupidly sloppy backhanded leap right into the
comforting lap of God.
Phenomenology is subjective, but it is rigorously descriptive of what
*is*. It puts scientism and empiricism in their place by removing the
unspecified assumptions and conceptual prejudices they secretly carry up
their sleeves.
The best of them is Merleau-Ponty, Sartre's best friend and responsible
for a lot of 'Sartre's' thoughts. The PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION is a
wonderful rigorous critique of scientifically based psychology. Try it
and then we'll have a decent debate.
Also, Husserl's book on scientific paradigms.
> In this sense, the world of *concepts* is completely interdependent and
> consciousness and human culture is needed for its existence. However,
> when we are talking about the physical world, which existed before we
> came along with all our concepts, abstractions, and symbols, then we
> are talking about a different matter (no pun intended).
>
> > Some would argue that it can't be done; that even the thing itself
> > is abstract thought (pure being or the same, pure nothing).
>
> DT:
> Yet that is exactly the kind of nonsense that Bateson and Korzybski are
> warning us about: confusing the map with the territory. To claim that
> the thing itself is abstract thought is to eat the menu and not the
> meal. What is known as a use/mention error. Such mental masturbation
> about 'pure being' and 'pure nothing' and equating them is laughable
> nonsense. Just the play of words.
but science and linguistics and cognitive psychology and sociobiology
have no conceptual prejudices. they're just pure observation. get real.
what a fool you are for someone so learned.
DharmaTroll
Tang the Merciless <tang_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> DharmaTroll wrote: <<Simple. You have to claim with certainty
> that it is not illusory, and then you have to claim with certainty
> that your claim [with certainty that it was not illusory] is also
> not illusory, and then you have to claim that *that* claim you
> know with certainty, and you have yourself one of those infinite
> regresses.>>
> You have lost touch with reality, my lad.
Not likely. For *I* haven't made *any* claims of infallible certainty.
> You were born from a mother and a father, live by eating, drinking...
> Those are bits certain knowledge.
Not really. 99.99... percent certain? Sure.
But I *might* be being fooled by Descartes' genie.
Or I might be being tricked by a super-computer called "The Matrix"
which has fabricated all my memories of these things.
Or I might be God or The Self or Lord Brahma dreaming all of this up;
and *you* are also Me: but you just happen to be a particularly
villainous unchin-snouted barnacle of a character in My Cosmic Dream.
All those are *possible*, Tang. I don't know, and in fact *can't* ever
know with certainty, that any of these possibilities does not obtain.
I don't think any of them to be *likely*, however. Whereas for Pi Chi
and Ardie and others, one of these is the *most* likely possibility,
and the physicalism/materialism which I spew is merely illusion.
> There is no incoherence or infinite regress involved.
I think there is, when one claims certainty. In simple terms, if you
claim to have certainty, I can ask, "but how do you know?" And then
whatever explanation you give, I can then ask, "but how do you know
*that*?"
There is no end to this line of questioning. At some point, one usually
gives up and confesses: "I believe my mommy/guru/sutra". And then one
is resting on an authority which can be questioned. (Note that claiming
to have an infallible guru or holy book doesn't help, because I can
again take it one more level deep and ask "but how do you know *that*"
yet again, and then it's turtles all the way down!)
> Or do you join the Tantric clique of Kent Sandvik who claims that
> everything is projection, ageing and death included?
No, I don't 'join' any 'clique', but I *am* describing that kind of
view in various posts. I'm arguing that the Hindu view makes sense, not
that I subscribe to it, which I don't happen to right now. You just see
Hindus everywhere you look, don't you Tang, the way Senator McCarthy
saw communists? Yeeheeheeheehee.
Incidentally, Tang, this makes me a better man than you. (Once again!)
For I can take a view which I don't hold, and explain it and defend it
better than even those who hold the view; whereas all you can do is
spout your own view triumphalistically and accuse grannies of having
views you want to attack, even when they don't even hold those views!
Then you have to run around convincing them that they are Hindus so
that you can refute them! As I said before, O it offends me to the soul
to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passage to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part
are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.
Now you actually accuse DT of being in "the Tantric clique" because I,
unlike you, Tang, can take any view I want and defend it brilliantly?
I feel sorry for your ignorance and shortcomings, Tang, and wish you
well. In fact, my huge compassion for you is only surpassed by my even
huger ego! Bwahahahaha!!! I truly am so much better than you, Tang!
DT Rules!
DT is the Totally Awesomest!!! I am the Alpha-Troll!!
DT *still* remains the Moronayanist Wrestling Champion of the World!
NeoLazarus
> In article <3A5799A6...@yahoo.com>,
> Tang the Merciless <tang_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > DharmaTroll wrote: <<Simple. You have to claim with certainty
> > that it is not illusory, and then you have to claim with certainty
> > that your claim [with certainty that it was not illusory] is also
> > not illusory, and then you have to claim that *that* claim you
> > know with certainty, and you have yourself one of those infinite
> > regresses.>>
>
> > You have lost touch with reality, my lad.
>
> Not likely. For *I* haven't made *any* claims of infallible certainty.
like say -- this one:
"There is no such thing as 'certain knowledge'."
You're absolutely certain of this?
Tang - just leave the stooge check blank and I'll write
in a generous but not greedy amount...
>
>
> > You were born from a mother and a father, live by eating, drinking...
> > Those are bits certain knowledge.
>
> Not really. 99.99... percent certain? Sure.
>
> But I *might* be being fooled by Descartes' genie.
Or you might just be Ardie too!
No wonder Ardie won't argue -- er, discuss
with you... because you're Ardie!
>
>
> Or I might be being tricked by a super-computer called "The Matrix"
> which has fabricated all my memories of these things.
>
> Or I might be God or The Self or Lord Brahma dreaming all of this up;
> and *you* are also Me: but you just happen to be a particularly
> villainous unchin-snouted barnacle of a character in My Cosmic Dream.
>
> All those are *possible*, Tang. I don't know, and in fact *can't* ever
> know with certainty, that any of these possibilities does not obtain.
>
> I don't think any of them to be *likely*, however. Whereas for Pi Chi
> and Ardie and others, one of these is the *most* likely possibility,
> and the physicalism/materialism which I spew is merely illusion.
As Ardie learns from people around here, his former positions
are undermined and in order to retain 'face' (for fear of being
called a <gasp!> 'neophyte') he changes personas over and over,
often times arguing with himself to give the illusion of separate
entities! Soooo... he switches personas from to time and yet always
falls back on his scholarly thinking and uses the same words which
reveal him to be who he always is. And probably always will be. Now
perhaps he masquerades as DT, super hero, wrestling with his own
shadows -- and the crowd, deluded as it may be, goes wild!
I'm showing 14:58 on the 15 minutes of the Ardie fame clock,
here folks -- back to you Rob!
>
>
> > There is no incoherence or infinite regress involved.
>
> I think there is, when one claims certainty. In simple terms, if you
> claim to have certainty, I can ask, "but how do you know?" And then
> whatever explanation you give, I can then ask, "but how do you know
> *that*?"
>
> There is no end to this line of questioning. At some point, one usually
> gives up and confesses: "I believe my mommy/guru/sutra". And then one
> is resting on an authority which can be questioned. (Note that claiming
> to have an infallible guru or holy book doesn't help, because I can
> again take it one more level deep and ask "but how do you know *that*"
> yet again, and then it's turtles all the way down!)
that's because one doesn't-know... how can one know anything if all
is completely empty of any inherent meaning... thus, don't know.
Ta-da! Wanna see it again?
Ardie, reground and stuffed into another sausage casing...
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
NeoLazarus
Ardie shoots down Ardie's own book suggestion!
DT Wins!
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
DharmaTroll
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> > For *I* haven't made *any* claims of infallible certainty.
>
> like say -- this one:
>
> "There is no such thing as 'certain knowledge'."
>
> You're absolutely certain of this?
No, I just think that it's very likely that there is no certainty.
> > But I *might* be being fooled by Descartes' genie.
>
> Or you might just be Ardie too!
Maybe. I do know how to pretend to be stupid and pathetic.
Then again, I might just be you, too.
> that's because one doesn't-know... how can one know anything if all
> is completely empty of any inherent meaning...
What do you mean by 'meaning'?
When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the five,
then there is meaning, "5 o'clock". That's meaning.
I don't know what you mean with the silly bozo word "inherent".
If you mean that the meaning of "5 o'clock" is context-dependent, then
sure. Wittgenstein points out that the question "when is it 5 o'clock
on the sun?" is meaningless. It is an empty question. But when you ask
the same question in New York, it has a lot of 'inherent' meaning.
NeoLazarus
> In article <3A589BF2...@altavista.com>,
> NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> > > For *I* haven't made *any* claims of infallible certainty.
> >
> > like say -- this one:
> >
> > "There is no such thing as 'certain knowledge'."
> >
> > You're absolutely certain of this?
>
> No, I just think that it's very likely that there is no certainty.
WHAM! Neo slams DT's head into the turnbuckle!
"That's for using qualifying statements when discussing
the nature of certainty...", Neo grunts. "Very likely
you'd be certain of a good ol' fashioned ass whuppin!"
CRACK! SLAM!
>
>
> > > But I *might* be being fooled by Descartes' genie.
> >
> > Or you might just be Ardie too!
>
> Maybe. I do know how to pretend to be stupid and pathetic.
Pretend? Heh.
SMACK!
>
> Then again, I might just be you, too.
Nope. And yet, yep -- but at an entirely different level.
>
>
> > that's because one doesn't-know... how can one know anything if all
> > is completely empty of any inherent meaning...
>
> What do you mean by 'meaning'?
>
> When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the five,
> then there is meaning, "5 o'clock". That's meaning.
What does 5 o'clock mean to time? To humans it means 1/2 hour
after tea time, or quittin' time or time for the 5 o'clock news. To
time itself, 5 o'clock is meaningless. 5 o'clock never appears to time
because time has no concept or contextual grasp of what 5 o'clock
means... you however do. [again this was written before reading the
rest of the contents of your reply... I am only adding this comment
after going back to proof read]
>
>
> I don't know what you mean with the silly bozo word "inherent".
Existing as an essential constituent or characteristic; intrinsic.
Permanently existing in something; inseparably attached or
connected; naturally pertaining to; innate; inalienable;
What no dictionary for the objectivist scholar?
Neo grabs the steel folding chair.
KONK!
"Oh that's gonna leave a mark!", burbled the color commentator.
>
>
> If you mean that the meaning of "5 o'clock" is context-dependent, then
> sure. Wittgenstein points out that the question "when is it 5 o'clock
> on the sun?" is meaningless. It is an empty question. But when you ask
> the same question in New York, it has a lot of 'inherent' meaning.\
DT talks under his breath, in an attempt to side with Neo in the middle
of the wrasslin' match. "NO! No pudding for you, bubba!", hissed Neo as
he whipped DT over his shoulder and began to spin...
>
>
> --DT
>
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
DharmaTroll
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
>> What do you mean by 'meaning'?
>>
>> When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the
>> five, then there is meaning, "5 o'clock". That's meaning.
>
> What does 5 o'clock mean to time? To humans it means 1/2 hour
> after tea time, or quittin' time or time for the 5 o'clock news.
> To time itself, 5 o'clock is meaningless.
What do you mean, "to time itself"? That's nonsense. Time isn't a
person. And people's needs give things meanings. If you take meaning to
be 'purpose' or 'function', then something can only have meaning if it
is part of the plan of a person, and only is meaningful to that person
in that way. So what?
> 5 o'clock never appears to time because time has no concept or
5 o'clock is defined as the angle of the sun 5 hours past noon at some
spot on the Earth. If you are on the sun, the definition is
nonsensical. There is no person 'time', so your talk is incoherent.
> > I don't know what you mean with the silly bozo word "inherent".
>
> Existing as an essential constituent or characteristic; intrinsic.
Well, I've said over and over and over that I don't think there are any
essences or spooks in anything, so that meaning is not intrinsic to
anything but is a function of relationship. I don't see how you are
disagreeing with me here. However, that has nothing to do with
reference to real physical phenomena, which is what we were discussing.
I wasn't discussion what cats, trees, stones, and stars mean to you,
only whether they exist, independently of you. However, as Lee pointed
out in his post, while claiming that we create cats is silly, the
thoughts and extra emotional baggage we tack on to the experience is
the real problem and issue dealt with in Buddhism.
NeoLazarus
> In article <3A59C46F...@altavista.com>,
> NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
>
> >> What do you mean by 'meaning'?
> >>
> >> When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the
> >> five, then there is meaning, "5 o'clock". That's meaning.
> >
> > What does 5 o'clock mean to time? To humans it means 1/2 hour
> > after tea time, or quittin' time or time for the 5 o'clock news.
> > To time itself, 5 o'clock is meaningless.
>
> What do you mean, "to time itself"? That's nonsense. Time isn't a
> person. And people's needs give things meanings. If you take meaning to
> be 'purpose' or 'function', then something can only have meaning if it
> is part of the plan of a person, and only is meaningful to that person
> in that way. So what?
In your objectivist universe does not time exist of it's own accord
without the need of arisen thoughts to create it? You backtrack
on yourself by restating some of my meanings dialog. Again you've
yet to wrap your noodle around all being the product of mind.
Yes. Even Time.
>
>
> > 5 o'clock never appears to time because time has no concept or
>
> 5 o'clock is defined as the angle of the sun 5 hours past noon at some
> spot on the Earth. If you are on the sun, the definition is
> nonsensical. There is no person 'time', so your talk is incoherent.
5 o'clock means something to humans, yes? Yes!
Does its meaning make it real? No!
What does it mean to not-humans?
What does it mean to time?
Nada. Zilch. Squat. Bupkis. NOTHING.
Obviously, time not being a human, it holds
no views or projections of mind. To time,
5 o'clock is perhaps just another moment.
>
>
> > > I don't know what you mean with the silly bozo word "inherent".
> >
> > Existing as an essential constituent or characteristic; intrinsic.
>
> Well, I've said over and over and over that I don't think there are any
> essences or spooks in anything, so that meaning is not intrinsic to
> anything but is a function of relationship. I don't see how you are
> disagreeing with me here. However, that has nothing to do with
> reference to real physical phenomena, which is what we were discussing.
Not to be discriminating or anything but here's the part of the above
paragraph that I can succinctly understand:
"I don't think"
>
>
> I wasn't discussion what cats, trees, stones, and stars mean to you,
> only whether they exist, independently of you. However, as Lee pointed
> out in his post, while claiming that we create cats is silly, the
> thoughts and extra emotional baggage we tack on to the experience is
> the real problem and issue dealt with in Buddhism.
>
> --DT
If you say so. You're the expert scholar.
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
[old message below to preserve continuity and rebut DT's Ardie-like
editing]
DharmaTroll wrote:
> In article <3A589BF2...@altavista.com>,
> NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> > > For *I* haven't made *any* claims of infallible certainty.
> >
> > like say -- this one:
> >
> > "There is no such thing as 'certain knowledge'."
> >
> > You're absolutely certain of this?
>
> No, I just think that it's very likely that there is no certainty.
WHAM! Neo slams DT's head into the turnbuckle!
"That's for using qualifying statements when discussing
the nature of certainty...", Neo grunts. "Very likely
you'd be certain of a good ol' fashioned ass whuppin!"
CRACK! SLAM!
>
>
> > > But I *might* be being fooled by Descartes' genie.
> >
> > Or you might just be Ardie too!
>
> Maybe. I do know how to pretend to be stupid and pathetic.
Pretend? Heh.
SMACK!
>
> Then again, I might just be you, too.
Nope. And yet, yep -- but at an entirely different level.
>
>
> > that's because one doesn't-know... how can one know anything if all
> > is completely empty of any inherent meaning...
>
> What do you mean by 'meaning'?
>
> When the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the five,
> then there is meaning, "5 o'clock". That's meaning.
What does 5 o'clock mean to time? To humans it means 1/2 hour
after tea time, or quittin' time or time for the 5 o'clock news. To
time itself, 5 o'clock is meaningless. 5 o'clock never appears to time
because time has no concept or contextual grasp of what 5 o'clock
means... you however do. [again this was written before reading the
rest of the contents of your reply... I am only adding this comment
after going back to proof read]
>
>
> I don't know what you mean with the silly bozo word "inherent".
Existing as an essential constituent or characteristic; intrinsic.
Permanently existing in something; inseparably attached or
connected; naturally pertaining to; innate; inalienable;
What no dictionary for the objectivist scholar?
Neo grabs the steel folding chair.
KONK!
"Oh that's gonna leave a mark!", burbled the color commentator.
>
>
> If you mean that the meaning of "5 o'clock" is context-dependent, then
> sure. Wittgenstein points out that the question "when is it 5 o'clock
> on the sun?" is meaningless. It is an empty question. But when you ask
> the same question in New York, it has a lot of 'inherent' meaning.\
DT talks under his breath, in an attempt to side with Neo in the middle
of the wrasslin' match. "NO! No pudding for you, bubba!", hissed Neo as
he whipped DT over his shoulder and began to spin...
>
>
> --DT
>
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
[end old message]
DharmaTroll
geowc...@aol.com (GeoWCherry) wrote:
> <DT>
> I wasn't discussion what cats, trees, stones, and stars mean to
> you, only whether they exist, independently of you. However, as
> Lee pointed out in his post, while claiming that we create cats is
> silly, the thoughts and extra emotional baggage we tack on to the
> experience is the real problem and issue dealt with in Buddhism.
> </DT>
George W:
> Yes. We inherited excessive self-interest and tribe-interest
> from our ancestors who survived and procreated because of these
> interests. It's now imperative that we drop these interests in
> favor of a planetary interest. Buddhism may help
DT:
This is an interesting position. I think Krishnamurti agreed with you
on this one. Sometimes people present spiritual goals as ways of
getting in touch with some deep biological instinct, to return to our
deeper nature that has been lost by modern society and so forth. Other
times, people present spiritual goals as being to go against our
biology and over-ride some maladaptive trait. You seem to be arguing
for that here.
Interestingly, Joseph Campbell thought that our deepest hard-wired
nature was one of inter-connection, and he explained heroic feats of
self-less bravery as a getting in touch with our deepest of instincts.
In explaining the heroic deed of a policeman to save a man attempting
suicide, Campbell invokes Schopenhauer's notion that, "you and that
other are one, that you are two aspects of the one life, and that your
apparent separateness is but an effect of the way we experience forms
under the conditions of space and time. Our true reality is in our
identity and unity with all life". Campbell says this deeper instinct
allows the policeman to overcome his self-interest and act
instinctively to reach out and risk his life to save a stranger.
> I want to become a post-Darwinian person, a person who drops the
> baggage bequeathed me by my ancestors.
Yet it is also possible that what you seek to gain is what was
bequeathed you by your ancestors. That is, this might be a matter of
getting in touch with our biology instead of going against it. Or
getting in touch with one part, while overcoming another part. What do
you think?
epste...@my-deja.com
what you don't understand, because it is apparently lacking in thee, is
that there is an intuitive sense of what exists beyond physical
reality, and it is not superstitution, it is as concrete as any other
of the senses that pick up concrete data. Your problem is that you are
so terrified of anything beyond the understanding of your pre-
fabricated conceptual blanky that you carry everywhere you go, that you
refuse to develop that faculty. As soon as it crops off you chop it
off like an unwelcome erection and go back to your flaccid and puerile
reasoning. Oh little man, see thy higher self!!!!
Robert
epste...@my-deja.com
Well at least you're human, Daryl, as opposed to DT, who is probably
actually a brain in a jar with a telescope attached.
Gleason Pace
>
> just because you cant always breakdown experience into
> conveient categories why blame it on a divine other,
> creativity are simply different human modes of thought,
> or simply processing information without paying attention to
> the sources such as sense memory
You are right, not for any of these reasons.
> This matter requires the bold advance of a lion; act like
> the lord of lions. If you proceed in that way there will be
> no need for fear. Your protecting deity is very powerful, so
> you will suceed. Just as honey can be taken when the bees
> are cleared away, act in reliance in yourself and definitely
> suceed.
fear, protect, power, succeed, take.
This is one state of mind.
peace, openness, cooperation, help, give
Here is another.
DT, you need not fear peace, it won't hurt you.
I recommend it.
Noah Sombrero
DharmaTroll
epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
Well, Rob, you finally confess your sins:
> there is an intuitive sense of what exists beyond physical
> reality, and it is not superstitution, it is as concrete as
> any other of the senses that pick up concrete data.
Nope. That is called 'makyo' in Zen. Delusion. Yes, conditioning can
feel concrete, but that can be softened too. You know very well that it
is superstition, but you mean that it's the superstition that *you*
happen to cling to, Rob. What would happen if you let go of all that
and just dealt with experience, of being a living critter in the world?
Take a look at how you won't even *own* your statement and admit "I
believe this and I have this intuition". Rather, you say "there is an
intuitive sense" using the passive voice, pretending to appeal to an
imaginary objective authority, trying to assert groundless blind faith
as objective fact, instead of describing how you interpret things.
Now, having nothing to back up the superstition, you will follow with
as strong of a personal attack as you can muster, hoping to divert the
issue away from your intuition that Jesus is your Personal Saviour or
whatever your story happens to be:
> Your problem is that you are so terrified of anything beyond the
> understanding o-f your pre-fabricated conceptual blanky
What, you think I'm scared? That'll be the day. I haven't made any
claims, and have only grounded what I say in experience. You're the one
with the "pre-fabricated coneptual blanky" when you say such things
as "non-physical". Don't get on my case for yawning at your talk of
invisible magic and the magic snake oil. If it isn't in our experience
(physical/empirical) then it doesn't have anything to do with living
our lives mindfully and freely, which is what I am concerned with.
> you refuse to...
"You, you, you..." Nice bluff, Rob, but I already know that there is
nothing in your hand. First it's the "I found Jesus" and then the "you
are this and that because you won't accept the Lord Jesus as your
Personal Saviour too!" I've heard it all before Rob. Doesn't matter the
content of your beliefs. That isn't spirituality you peddle: it's
dogma. Arf, arf!
> Oh little man, see thy higher self!!!!
Little? What, are you taking lessons from Bhava now?
Well, Mr. Holier-than-Thou, I'd really rather see things as there are,
and there is no self in sight here to be seen at all: no lower self; no
higher self. Just a kind of theatre, where several perceptions
successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and
mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations; but no self,
lower or higher, to be found anywhere.
If you Rob, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, think that you
have a different notion of yourself, then I must confess I can reason
no longer with you. All I can allow you is, that you may be in the
right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this
particular. You may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd,
Rob, which you call your higher self; though I am certain (within
99.99% that is) that there is no such principle in me.
--DT, just a Humean Being
NeoLazarus
the intuitive sense you describe is mind... 5 sensual points of contact:
sight, sound, touch, taste and smell and the 6th is mind... see info
pertaining to dependent origination or dependent co-origination.
(aka dependent arising or dependent co-arising)
Although not sutta per se, this is one of better pages to show visual
representation:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/paticca.htm
here's some related material for those interested:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn12-2.html#dependent
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn12-67.html
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
Daryl
In article <934s42$nc1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote...
>
>In article <dxe56.13$Ej.1...@news.eol.ca>,
> kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
>
>> I'm not at all arguing that cats don't exist except in my head,
>
>DT:
>Good. Once again, I am only arguing that they 'exist', and I am not
>making claims about what we *know* about them, except that we can only
>know a very little about them.
>
>So Daryl, you seem to agree with me on this. (I think the most
>important point is to never confuse the ontological issue with the
>epistemic ones. Once you conflate them, then idealism makes sense: but
>if you don't conflate them, then idealism doesn't have a leg to stand
>on.)
You obviously agree with me only so far, DT. My acceptance
that the moon will continue to exist after I'm gone or while
I'm asleep is merely a matter of convenience. For all I
know it and everything else that I know will cease to exist
when I'm gone. (Certainly my version of it will cease to
exist.) It's a small-b belief, not "Knowledge" as you seem
to be proposing. (and if that's not what you're proposing
then you're just being silly, for even an idealist will tell
you that there is a moon)
Don't you think that it's necessary at some point to conflate
ontology and epistemology? I mean surely it doesn't make
sense to decare that things exist until you know that you
CAN make such declarations.
>> I'm arguing that there is significance in fully understanding
>> that _all we have of cats_ comes by way of sense impressions,
>
>Yes, that is what Bertrand Russell says, and I agree fully.
>
>> and that any supposition that we form about what causes those
>> sense impressions is limited and conditioned by our involvement
>> in the act of perception.
>
>Right. I agree as well. But then we have to go on and test our limited
>suppositions, and see what happens. That's how we learn more. Hence,
>our knowing is always to a degree.
Okay, but I would say "never certain" rather than "to a degree".
>It seems that you agree with just about all my points, Daryl, and then
>you do this mind-reading stuff where you arbitrarily project all sorts
>of nasty motivations, dispositions, and intentions onto people. So
>whereas I give you *some* credit for acknowledging that I am right
>about almost every point (as usual), you are still mind-reading all
>sorts of nonsense onto others and trying to conflate this issue with
>irrelevant issues: therefore I still proclaim you to be a gorbellied
>fool-born hugger-mugger!
You've done your share of projecting, thou saucy idle-headed mammet.
I'm just trying to make you more comfortable by "speaking your
language" because I know how hard it's going to be for you to
accept the searing truth I'm delivering to your crusty botch of
nature.
>> Both realists and idealists suffer from the same malady, a
>> malady which Buddhism addresses: the need for the belief that
>> we can know and thereby control our world,
>
>Pish! Asserting that trees and cats exist has nothing to do with
>controlling the world.
Sure it does. It is leaping to a Belief, however small one
believes that leap is. It isn't a necessary leap. One could
get by without it. Science could get by without it in fact,
although I acknowledge that many see realism and science as
necessary bedfellows. The reason for that leap is the need
for confidence, I would argue, and the urge to have
some_thing_ that one can have confidence in is what
religions address whether they do that by proposing some kind
of a metaphysics or by other means. Within the context of
Buddhism I believe that it's by some other means, which is
why I made the subject of this thread "realism vs idealism,
relevant?". I don't think that it's important which of the
two perspectives the Buddhist practitioner works from since
Buddhist awakening, to me, is outside of either.
>In fact, realism is a harsh confession that we are *not* in control.
Take a poll DT and see if you find that most people have
a clue about the significance of "nothing can ever be proven,
only disproven". The faith that people in general have in
realism/science does not include that "harsh confession". In
general, and even among scientists, it's obvious that there is
belief not in the provisionality of discoveries and theories
but in the "real things" that they are assumed to be attempting
to describe, and there is an assumption that our theories are
being honed towards perfection, not merely being improved to
provide greater predictive power. You conflate the method with
the motivation/belief.
>Whereas the idealist can say that everything is created by his mind or
>thoughts (and thus is ultimately in his control), the realist cannot.
Come come. You and I have necessarily been making very wide
brush strokes here. Idealism in all it's forms is not
synonymous with solipsism. Plato, for instance, thought
that Ideas were objective. Others have thought that there
was one-mind behind appearances. You are using one easy to
criticize (though not disprove) form of idealism to argue
against idealism in general.
>If the truck hits me, I get squished. Belief in life after death is
>another way to be in control, that somehow I can escape death. Yet by
>not going for spooks or gods or reincarnation, I am not in control and
>am not a spook who can 'choose' to be reborn in some unlucky vagina.
>Rather, I am a fragile biological system that can easily be flattened
>by a mack-truck.
>
>Again, Daryl, you have added your own stereotypes to the mix. What you
>are saying about being in control is not a necessary condition of
>asserting that cats, trees, stones, and stars actually exist, whether I
>perceive them or not.
Of course it's not a condition. You're conflating motivation
with reason.
As for stereotyping, heh, it seems that I'm in good company.
>> faith that science will cure death,
>
>What are you talking about? Please quote any passage where I ever have
>claimed that I had 'faith' that 'science' would 'cure' death forever?
I'm mind-reading, in good company.
>Rather, science *accepts* death, and doesn't claim that we reincarnate
>back here or in heaven or wherever. Again, that comment is in left
>field. It's religion, not science, that is in denial of death.
Rubbish. Denial of death is everywhere. Religion is just
more honest about it by plainly stating that it's about
trying to get around it. If science accepts death then why
is it that so much of it is applied towards medicine?
>> or that we will have enough dandy toys to keep us distracted
>> from death.
>
>Having toys has nothing to do with scientific realism and asserting
>that cats, trees, stones, and stars exist. Also, being able to cure
>some illnesses and sometimes save lives is a wonderful thing. My dad
>would be dead if his prostate cancer hadn't been cured by his being
>nuked with the most sophisticated radiation therapy available, and now
>he is in perfect health, and may live to be 90 or 100.
Yes, may he!
>> it's not the doctrine here that counts, it's the motivation.
>
>While I agree with this point, you then wrongly attribute bad, silly
>motivations to whomever you want, and that is just projection, Daryl.
I'm in good company.
>> Realists like you have a blind spot in all of this: in
>> arguing for your philosophy with the "best" or "most
>> reasonable explanation" doctrine, rigourously true to the
>> admission that certainty is never absolute, you fail to
>> note that what motivates your *finding sufficiency*
>
>Yes, I spelled out exactly what this was, thou impertinent bat-fowling
>bum-bailey!
Well, you context-blind mugworm, I used "finding sufficiency"
in the personal sense of belief, not the impersonal sense of
methodical utility.
>The best explanation is the theory which fits the data best given all
>that we know at the time. I also pointed out that what we know may
>change tomorrow, which is why we never, ever take any theory as proven,
>and admit that all theories could be uprooted tomorrow. Any scientist
>will tell you that the history of science consists of trashing accepted
>theories and replacing them. (Religion is just the opposite, and deals
>with clinging to beliefs in the face of absurdity.)
I would say "in the face of uncertainty", which could of course
include absurdity.
What could be more absurd than placing one's faith in a system
that guarantees that none of the knowledge it yields will
ever be certain?
>> An actual real material independent existence behind all the sense
>> impressions is your metaphysics, and it's not fundamentally
>> different from the idealists' faith in there being a first mover
>
>Oh yes it is! An idealist would have to explain how I recreate the tree
>each time I walk out my back door. Realism is simpler: I simply say
>that if there were a tree there whether I were there or not, then the
>tree would simply have remained there, and I wouldn't have to explain
>how I whisked it out of existence and then back into existence.
You're conflating motivation with method again, and reducing
all forms of idealism to solipsism again.
But it's even worse than that. Your (Russell's) entire argument
of simplicity completely glosses over the fact that Realism has
the same problem; that it too has to explain how it is that the
tree is still there. "Because it's real and actually exists
independently" isn't sufficient, since we know that trees and
cats and rocks are made of components. How many atoms are there
in the average cat, and how many subatomic relationships that
can only be described with very complex mathematical formulas
are necessary to maintain what we eventually see as a cat? A
Platonic Form (Idea) or God are both less complex explanations.
Russell's simplicity more or less presumes the equivalent of a
Form if it's to be evaluated without the atomic stuff.
>In the same way, Kepler's eliptical orbits of the planets around the
>sun are a much simpler explanation than Ptolomy's theory with the Earth
>at the center and all the epicycles or circles rolling on circles to
>explain the zig-zag retrograde motion of the planets across the sky.
And more elegant.
"as simple as a flower, and that's a complicated thing"
--Love & Rockets
>Daryl, you don't want to look at these issues, but merely mind-read
>your silly stereotypes into people and make assumptions about their
>motivations or values. That is unwarranted and none of your crap
>applies to these claims.
One mind-reader to another...
>> the urge to believe in bedrock in both cases,
>
>No urges. Just the best explanation given what we know at present.
I would argue that the urge to accept a "best" explanation is
simply a frustrated urge for a perfect explanation, else we
wouldn't even prefer the best one.
>> So all that stuff about "realism cannot ever be proven" is
>> just a pose, a feigned blush or a dishonesty, when the
>> issue is _faith_.
>
>Agian, no faith involved at all. Daryl, you have conceded every one of
>my main points, and now you try to babble about faith, which has
>nothing at all to do with Kepler's theories being better than Ptolomy's.
I've conceded nothing, thou tottering elf-skinned fustilarian,
for I was never in opposition to them so much as I am in
opposition to what you seem to think the significance of them
is, ie. that your "realism" is a better way of engaging faith
issues than idealism is. What is really happening here is that
you are worming out of the faith issues when it suits you and
grandstanding with the easy mechanical stuff.
>Inference to the best explanation is never the same as "proving" that
>anything is correct. Every scientific theory is open to falsification
>and can be replaced by a stronger theory which better fits the data.
>Consider my all-time favourite example:
No need. Old ground. Red herring.
>Man, I love that example about the eclipse!!! But anyway, as you see,
>Daryl, no faith involved in the blind-faith sense. Just a confidence
>based on the data and having the best explanation, as well as a
>willingness to trash it all if new evidence and/or a better theory
>comes along tomorrow. A willingness not found in religious believers.
Rubbish. A religious believer can trash a scientific theory
and replace it with a better one as easily as anyone. Well,
most religious believers. I've no confidence that a Realist
would let go of his idea of a "real tree" very easily...
>> Buddhism has long employed frameworks of discovery that
>> employ conceptions of divine (or ideal) agencies, and it
>> has done so with apparent success.
>
>Christianity has success with God and souls and heaven as well.
>But that success is not the same kind of success that Einstein had
>after testing his theory against Newton's at that solar eclipse.
You're talking about two different kinds of success.
>In fact, where Buddhism does test out is in meditation practise, where
>one *can* test the results of logging in the hours and doing the
>practise. In that sense, it works, and you don't need any deities.
I'm certain that you'd find the same kind of success in
Christian practice.
>(Interestingly, what is practical to our actual lives can *always* be
>tested, because anything that cannot be tested is therefore not
>grounded in our experience. That's why all non-testable, i.e. non-
>falsifiable, claims are meaningless in the end, except as metaphors,
>but that's another issue.)
>
>You can cultivate mindfulness and be kind and mindful throughout the
>day and see if it has effects on you. That's real Buddhism, not all the
>comic-book crap about deities or psychic powers or life after death.
>
>> The Buddha defeated Mara, not cats and rocks and can openers,
>
>And Mara is a metaphor for conditioned thoughts and habits.
So you concede that idealistic metaphors are effective.
Wonderful. Now maybe your anti-idealist zeal will wane.
>> and he found Nirvana, not just self-actualization or freedom
>
>Nirvana isn't a thing that can be *found*, you impertinent bat-fowling
>bum-bailey! Rather, nirvana is simply the non-arising of craving and
>suffering. No goo-goo-ka-choo. Just yucky stuff failing to arise
>anymore.
Look you walrus, Buddhism isn't just 2500 year old psychology.
Maybe you fear that it's more than that because you're
uncomfortable thinking that everything can't be ultimately
reduced to simple and reliable physics.
>Nirvana is only described in negative terms -- that is, in terms of
>what doesn't show up any longer. Nothing is *added* or *found*. Only a
>burden is lifted. As one Zen master put it metaphorically, nirvana is
>just like ordinary life, except one is a half-inch up off the ground.
So one finds a way to live as if one is floating a half-inch
up off the ground? That sounds like something added or found.
Methinks you are just quibbling, my sweet creature of bombast.
epste...@my-deja.com
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <3A5725E2...@yahoo.com>,
> Tang Huyen <tang_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > DharmaTroll wrote:
> > <<In fact, the very idea of certain knowledge is incoherent.>>
> >
> > How do you support such an assertion? The claimed
> > "certain knowledge", whatever it is, may be not certain at all,
> > may be wholly illusory,
>
> Yes, that's my point.
>
> > but how is it incoherent?
>
> Simple. You have to claim with certainty that it is not illusory, and
> then you have to claim with certainty that your claim with certainty
> that it was not illusory is also not illusory, and then you have to
> claim that *that* claim you know with certainty, and you have yourself
> one of those infinite regresses.
what you miss in your own explanation is that the same proof is
necessary for claims of empirical reality, which is why the entire
realm of experience (being dependent on an uncertain vehicle of
apprehension -- the human mind and body) is equally incoherent. But
you won't ever admit that, will you?
DharmaTroll
epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
> what you miss in your own explanation is that the same proof is
> necessary for claims of empirical reality, which is why the
No proof is necessary, because I'm not making any claims of certainty.
Once again, I'm only claiming that some theories are better than
others, and no infinite regress or proof is needed. You and Neo keep
making the same false accusations, even after I've gone over this a
dozen times, Rob. Reread my posts, or say something meaningful.
NeoLazarus
Again, allow me -
To let my own ego shine through for just a moment,
the only work of art in all these discussions on all these
'Nature of Reality' threads is my 'Western (Spruce) Koan'.
It reads like a Monty Python skit and it was written
spontaneously as I read your previous response. Live
performance art at its best. I'll note for the record that
you have neglected to respond to that one! Apparently I
cut down your 'real' tree and ran it through the wood chipper.
Or something. There's a copy in absfg if you couldn't find
it here... not that I asking you to respond in your typical
pedantic manner. At this point I could care less.
As far as your posts, I see only clinging to objects and
the inability to acknowledge all as product of mind
and arisen thoughts. No magic. No spooks. Just our
feeble little human minds attempting to attach meaning
to all the crap we observe.
Oh - that and I see someone pretending to be wrestling.
It became unfunny after the first one... but perhaps that's
just my view.
<Ego OFF>
DharmaTroll
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> As far as your posts, I see only clinging to objects and
> the inability to acknowledge all as product of mind
In other words, you disagree, but instead of being man enough to simply
admit you have different opinions, you dump all sorts of judgements on
someone else when they disagree with you and don't agree with your
wacko beliefs.
Go start a war or something, rogue.
NeoLazarus
So my view that things are real, but that they only have the
meaning that we as humans give them is wrong? I've been
saying this for several message threads but you've been too
busy patting yourSELF on the back, congratulating yourSELF
for your 'stunning' wit.
Again you edit out all the things you cannot deal with!
Why not admit you're a useless troll who's opinions and
views are just that. Opinions. Views. I have. I just won't
ever have to admit to being a troll, because the things
I put up for discussion are honest original thoughts,
and not bait like yours. You put out bait to have a foil
against which to present even more of your views.
Let's just say I'm not going to take the bait any longer
and I'd advise others against it too. It's sad really. I say
a post of yours on another thread where you appeared
to be lucid, rational and made a lot of sense about
Buddhist doctrine. I enjoyed it greatly, but didn't
respond with even a thank you because I thought
you might take it the wrong way. Again, your loss.
Instead of responding to the full message you just resort
to calling me names and ad hominem attacks, as usual.
Here... deal with the entire post, not just the parts you
can.
>Again, allow me -
>
>To let my own ego shine through for just a moment,
>the only work of art in all these discussions on all these
>'Nature of Reality' threads is my 'Western (Spruce) Koan'.
>It reads like a Monty Python skit and it was written
>spontaneously as I read your previous response. Live
>performance art at its best. I'll note for the record that
>you have neglected to respond to that one! Apparently I
>cut down your 'real' tree and ran it through the wood chipper.
>Or something. There's a copy in absfg if you couldn't find
>it here... not that I asking you to respond in your typical
>pedantic manner. At this point I could care less.
>
>As far as your posts, I see only clinging to objects and
>the inability to acknowledge all as product of mind
>and arisen thoughts. No magic. No spooks. Just our
>feeble little human minds attempting to attach meaning
>to all the crap we observe.
>
>Oh - that and I see someone pretending to be wrestling.
>It became unfunny after the first one... but perhaps that's
>just my view.
>
><Ego OFF>
>
>
> --DT
The way your troll responses deal with me is the same way
you view reality. Incompletely.
Loser! Shape up or I'll cancel-bot you to oblivion forever,
casting you back to the hell from which you came!
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
NeoLazarus
and your first response explaining the difference that I found
you to be at you most lucid and your words to be useful
knowledge instead of empty troll bait. Why don't you spend
more time in this mode instead of your deluded wrassler
mode? Then perhaps you will truly teach me something.
Something other than how to piss up a rope...
-NL
Xian Ning Ao
DharmaTroll
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> So my view that things are real, but that they only have the
> meaning that we as humans give them is wrong?
No. That's not the view you expressed. That's the view that I
expressed. If this is your current view, then you have been converted
to my view and the conversation is over.
If you deny that rocks, cats, trees, and stars exist, then present your
case so I can kick your sorry butt yet again.
> I've been saying this for several message threads but you've been
> too busy patting yourSELF on the back, congratulating yourSELF
Nope. You tried to change the subject and talk about meaning. I don't
care about meaning or your penis or anything else in this thread. Only
whether the universe is real or not. That question has nothing to do
with meaning.
You have now changed sides and are parroting my claims.
At least give me credit and admit "You, oh brilliant awesome DT were
right, and I, deluded pathetic ignormamus, was wrong."
> Again you edit out all the things you cannot deal with!
There is nothing I haven't dealt with.
I tend to only allocate 5 minutes to a post, unless it is one where I
really have to think, and then I spend 10-15. I've dealt with all your
crap and refuted it.
> Why not admit you're a useless troll who's opinions and
Oh you mean I edit out your insults like that. Yes I edit them out
because I don't accept them as having anything to do with me but rather
only as a projection of your own crap. You can deal with them yourself.
You'll just have to learn to have some humility, rogue.
DharmaTroll
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
> yep... it was in the thread "Re: Advaita vs Zen - difference?"
> and your first response explaining the difference that I found
> you to be at you most lucid and your words to be useful
> knowledge instead of empty troll bait. Why don't you spend
> more time in this mode instead of your deluded wrassler
Because I mirror the tone of the poster. It's up to you, rogue.
epste...@my-deja.com
Why? Numbers are freaking meaningless! ha ha ha ha
And then DT trots out poor old Wittgenstein, who took 10 years off to
rework his entire system, because a bright student found a logical flaw.
Wittgenstein, in his final work, was investigating linguistic questions
that fly in the face of positivism: what would it mean to say 'I have
a pain in my leg' if one were to reach down and find that the leg that
was causing you the pain was that of the person sitting next to you?
His language games hinted at a transpersonal reality that is both
hidden and made explicable by language acts.
Like the bible, you can use him as you wish.
And DT has ravaged him, along with poor ol' Nazi dream-meister
Heidegger, who was busy spinning his idealistic yarns about Being-In-
The-World, while turning his own Master Husserl out of the door because
he was Jewish.
DTs real world is so shrouded, so hidden by clouds, so out of touch
with its own acts, it is truly a fanciful dream of absolutes within a
pathetic nightmare of uncertainty.
DTs idealistic empiricism, or empirical idealism, is a lovely
religion. And it gets things done.
Robert
In article <3A59C46F...@altavista.com>,
NeoLazarus <neola...@altavista.com> wrote:
epste...@my-deja.com
What do you consider 'Buddhism'? There's certainly a lot more
than 'thoughts and extra emotional baggage' dealt with in Tibetan
Buddhism, not to mention much of Zen. Is there some part of Buddhism
which is more mystical which you, like Tang, consider 'not true
Buddhism'? (And are you capable of answering a question?)
If you are selectively identifying the parts of Buddhism you believe
in, you are reducing Buddhism to your own idea of it and in essence
creating your own philosophy (call it religious positivism if you like).
I don't mind you believing in your empirical dogma, but I do object to
you identifying all 'real' Buddhism as in direct agreement with your
limited view of the path to enlightenment (see: no capitabl letters
except for the big B. Do you object to that too?)
Robert
epste...@my-deja.com
check these out.
musas...@my-deja.com
Futurist idealists in the eighteenth century probably envisioned alot
of the things we have now and were mocked by others to, "come back to
reality" which does hold some weight cuz everything unfolds
sequencially and being a futurist isn't "living in the moment"
If you believe in a God that is about good, excellence, purity,
balanced perfection and is the supreme, universal, eternal, everloving
ideal God,
And if our purpose of human existence is to "rediscover" God,
Then existing in a supreme ideal world is possible one day... with
patience as it unfolds...
That's the way I see it...
In article <Qd856.9$Ej....@news.eol.ca>,
kwans...@eol222.ca (Daryl) wrote:
> In article <932f73$n3k$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
> DharmaTroll (dharm...@my-deja.com) wrote...
> >
> DT:
> >Rob claims (as does Daryl and others) that:
> >
> >(1) A natural, experiencial/empirical understanding of nature would
> >render life meaningless. Therefore,
> >(2) We should believe all sorts of nonsense and spookery and like
after
> >death or God or whatever your particular religions sells.
>
> I do not, thou fusty dizzy-eyed dewberry. I merely recognize that
> this can be the case for many or most people, and needlessly so,
> because I don't think that Zen/Buddhist understanding requires that
> one start from either an idealist or a realist position. All
> views (even pragmatic 99.999999% realist certainties) need to be
> "transcended", to make a long argument short.
>
> Ya know DT, you and Ardie should get married. Such perfect
> foils are hard to find. heh
>
> DT:
> >I claim that (1) is false; hence the motivation for (2) can be
removed.
>
> And I claim that an experiential/empirical understanding of
> nature isn't even in the same domain as religious faith and
> that zealots of any stripe can put them at odds to the
> detriment not the betterment of both. Thank God for Newton
> and Einstein! Allelulia! See, no problem.
>
> --
> Daryl - 2 email me, remove the 2's
>
> http://www.ajiva.com/daryl/rel/
>
>
DharmaTroll
epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
> And then DT trots out poor old Wittgenstein, who took 10 years
> off to rework his entire system, because a bright student found
> a logical flaw.
No, he retired because he arrogantly claimed that he had solved all the
important problems of philosophy.
Don't you get anything right, Rob?
> And DT has ravaged him, along with poor ol' Nazi dream-meister
> Heidegger, who was busy spinning his idealistic yarns about
Calling people Nazis or Positivists or whatever instead of reading them
is not a way to be intelligent.
You also attacked Sartre last week. Who are you, Jerry Falwell Junior?
Look at what all these people, who've I've bothered to read and study,
have to say.
Maybe if you seriously studied people who dedicated their lives to
understanding the mystery of life, instead of neatly labeling them and
dismissing them, you wouldn't go around peddling your snake oil and
capital letter comic book babble.
> DTs real world is so shrouded, so hidden by clouds, so out of touch
Wow! You can read minds, too?
> DTs idealistic empiricism, or empirical idealism,
Any more labels or names?
You've just got me all figured out, don't you Rob?
Dream on, rogue.
--DT
NeoLazarus
epste...@my-deja.com
as well, which is that of course the moon is in the sky in the realm of
physical existents, but that this entire realm is:
1. only one of several interdimensional realms in which humans have
existence in; and
2. that the entire physical universe has a status which is more
provisional and relative than you make it out to be.
I have now cited everything from logic and observation to intuition and
Buddhist literature, but you ignore it all and don't even attempt to
interact with my arguments. So, shall we keep annoying each other?
Robert
epste...@my-deja.com
> and your first response explaining the difference that I found
> you to be at you most lucid and your words to be useful
> knowledge instead of empty troll bait. Why don't you spend
> more time in this mode instead of your deluded wrassler
> mode? Then perhaps you will truly teach me something.
> Something other than how to piss up a rope...
>
> -NL
> Xian Ning Ao
ha ha ha!!!
----------------------
epste...@my-deja.com
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <93m0e0$gha$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > And then DT trots out poor old Wittgenstein, who took 10 years
> > off to rework his entire system, because a bright student found
> > a logical flaw.
>
> No, he retired because he arrogantly claimed that he had solved all the
> important problems of philosophy.
>
> Don't you get anything right, Rob?
>
> > And DT has ravaged him, along with poor ol' Nazi dream-meister
> > Heidegger, who was busy spinning his idealistic yarns about
>
> Calling people Nazis or Positivists or whatever instead of reading them
> is not a way to be intelligent.
>
> You also attacked Sartre last week. Who are you, Jerry Falwell Junior?
> Look at what all these people, who've I've bothered to read and study,
> have to say.
>
> Maybe if you seriously studied people who dedicated their lives to
> understanding the mystery of life, instead of neatly labeling them and
> dismissing them, you wouldn't go around peddling your snake oil and
> capital letter comic book babble.
oh fellow mind-reader, you know who I've read and studied and for how
long?
DharmaTroll
geowc...@aol.com (GeoWCherry) wrote:
> <DT>
> Yet it is also possible that what you seek to gain is what was
> bequeathed you by your ancestors. That is, this might be a matter
> of getting in touch with our biology instead of going against it.
> Or getting in touch with one part, while overcoming another part.
> What do you think?
> </DT>
>
> George W:
> I think "my original nature" is not the Tao or Buddha but
> self-interest or tribe-interest. We may be altruistic with other
> members of our tribe or even extend altruism to most of our species,
> but that is because our genes have an interest in the survival of
> our cousins and nth-cousins because they have some of our genes.
Yes! By George, that is called or "kin selection", where individual-
level altruism benefiting relatives is gene-level selfishness, as in
W.D. Hamilton's (1964) theory of relatedness and "inclusive fitness".
The principle of the theory is simple: an individual can transmit its
genes to the next generations in two basic ways, by having its own
offspring or by benefiting the reproduction of relatives who share
genes by common descent.
Then, the benefit of an act in terms of reproductive success for the
individual is a function of its cost to the individual and the benefit
conferred on the relatives, weighted by the degree of relatedness (i.e.
the proportion of genes shared with the relative by common descent).
The overall success of an individual in reproducing its genes directly
through its offspring or indirectly by helping relatives is called its
inclusive fitness.
This basic insight, while somewhat awkward within a perspective that
views the individual as the unit of evolution, is perfectly
straightforward within a gene-centered understanding of evolution.
We end up with a totally awesome mathematical formula for compassion,
known as "Hamilton's Rule":
c < rb
where, in terms of fitness, c indicates the cost to the actor, b
indicates the benefit to the recipient, and r indicates the degree of
relatedness between actor and recipient. By this formulation, actors
can be expected to gain fitness by assisting relatives, provided that
the cumulative benefit to the recipients is greater than the cost to
the actor. Now this logic, coupled with the fact that interaction
between individuals will likely be biased towards kin rather than non-
kin (particularly those of an altruistic nature), provides a theory in
which compassion and evolutionary success are no longer at odds.
> I judge compassion by a person's being able to love a life
> genetically very different from a human.
>
> George
You're saying something else here: that you think compassion is
necessarily going against our instincts instead of tapping into a wider
self-interest or deeper instinct, as I am suggesting. Interesting.
epste...@my-deja.com
gee, I would say it's not very 'compassionate' to have your empathetic,
supportive acts be for promotion of your own family, with the compassion
being stronger the closer your genetic ties.
That's not called compassion.
That's called nepotism and is the opposite of merit.
Therefore you would wind up supporting the reproductive chances of
inferior genes, as long as they're related to *you*.
Let's say you're going to die from a genetic defect, or can't reproduce
because of a genetic defect, and so are 70% of your relatives. You take
the 30% who are stronger but still carry the defect and help them
reproduce. You pass on the bad gene because you want to support 'your'
gene group and weaken the genetic makeup of the species.
It's the opposite of natural selection.
The same system works in social life, where relatives hand out jobs to
their incompetent family members.
Enlightened self-interest, when it is based on the small self, does
nothing but increase the illusion of separation and create more conflict.
Robert
GeirSmith
Check out the ConvertstoIslam site that posted here. There's the testimony of
an english buddhist to Islam who said that he was really pissed at the jewish
in Israel who say they are semitic when they were in fact slavs ("salvs" !)
converted to Judaism (apparently he thinks semitic is cool !).
Slavs are cool too, bimbo arab racist ! I thought that was really funny that
the insult during the nazis' time ("semite !")
is, in the words of this english pro arab muslim, a compliment, he says the
guys who suffered from being insulted with it by the nazis, are now not
entitled to.The guy was a white english and his two wives were indian (India).
Jewish slavs, english-muslim mix muslims. Interesting...
DharmaTroll
epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
> gee, I would say it's not very 'compassionate' to have your
> empathetic, supportive acts be for promotion of your own family,
> with the compassion being stronger the closer your genetic ties.
>
> That's not called compassion.
> That's called nepotism and is the opposite of merit.
Rob, once again you are fool and a rogue, as usual.
On the contrary, forming a bond with family members and supporting them
is one of the strongest ways to have a support base for living a
spiritual life and raising children to be caring, mindful human beings.
> Therefore you would wind up supporting the reproductive chances of
> inferior genes, as long as they're related to *you*.
Not in my case, as I have superior genes, being so totally awesome.
In your case, I would suggest you go have a vasectomy tomorrow. The
thought of you breeding is indeed quite frightening. We have enough
Hare Krishnas and Jehovah's Witnesses as it is. Better yet, book
passage for all your family on the next comet to Nirvana, thou lumpish
hasty-witted minnow!
> Let's say you're going to die from a genetic defect, or can't
> reproduce because of a genetic defect, and so are 70% of your
> relatives.
In that case, you wouldn't go for *genes* as much as *values*. That is,
you would help the people who most live those values which you most
highly regard, and you help them reproduce those values (either by
having sex with them, or by spreading those values you cherish).
> Enlightened self-interest, when it is based on the small self, does
> nothing but increase the illusion of separation and create more
> conflict.
On the contrary, enlightened self-interest, also called 'activism',
helps to spread social awareness and change society for the better.
And better to spread social awareness than social diseases.
Rob, may you be reborn as a goatish brazen-faced hedge-pig.
>
> Robert
--My Divine Grace Yabba Dabba Dukkha Dharmakaya Trollpa
DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <94b3kc$pqm$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Therefore you would wind up supporting the reproductive chances of
> > inferior genes, as long as they're related to *you*.
>
> DT:
> Not in my case, as I have superior genes, being so totally awesome.
>
> In your case, I would suggest you go have a vasectomy tomorrow. The
> thought of you breeding is indeed quite frightening. We have enough
> Hare Krishnas and Jehovah's Witnesses as it is. Better yet, book
> passage for all your family on the next comet to Nirvana, thou
> lumpish hasty-witted minnow!
Of course I was just teasing you, Robert and don't think that you are
anything like a Hare Krishna, Jehovah's Witness, or Heaven's Gatist.
I think I went too far in my silliness that time, and I apologise.
Anyway, I was too busy being obnoxious and over-doing the mud-wrestling
to point out my dilemma that has to do with what you said.
You said something that I often hear, that because we might be
genetically inclined to some behaviour, such as protecting our family,
that such action isn't compassionate.
I'm still wrestling over whether compassion is *necessarily* going
against biological instincts, or whether compassion might be to comply
with some of our instincts, which are more socially oriented, yet still
were developed because of their survival value.
That is, why should we write something off as not compassionate simply
due to its corresponding to connecting to something which has to some
extent been hard-wired into us?
That's what I wanted to ask here.
--DT
epste...@my-deja.com
thou self-inflicted head-anus.
GeirSmith
Wish the messiannic, millennialists, muslim splinter groups and far flung
autonomous republics, would keep on sending their stuff. At least we wouldn't
feel all alone on this list. Falun Gong, we love you and feel terrible about
the horrible period of oppression, the odious regime in Beijing is writing in
China's history, by the mad imrisonments of followers. Bush will now help you
very quickly, as he is so close to Taïwan, and has China very unhappy about not
getting Gore, as a continuator of Clinton's "closed eyes to human rights"
policy.
Tang Huyen
epste...@my-deja.com wrote: <<gee, I would say it's not very
'compassionate' to have your empathetic, supportive acts be for promotion of
your own family, with the compassion being stronger the closer your genetic
ties.
That's not called compassion. That's called nepotism and is the opposite of
merit.
Therefore you would wind up supporting the reproductive chances of inferior
genes, as long as they're related to *you*.
Let's say you're going to die from a genetic defect, or can't reproduce
because of a genetic defect, and so are 70% of your relatives. You take the
30% who are stronger but still carry the defect and help them reproduce. You
pass on the bad gene because you want to support 'your' gene group and weaken
the genetic makeup of the species.
It's the opposite of natural selection. The same system works in social life,
where relatives hand out jobs to their incompetent family members.
Enlightened self-interest, when it is based on the small self, does nothing
but increase the illusion of separation and create more conflict.>>
We are caught between a rock and a hard place. All of our ancestors have
reproduced, by definition, because if they had not, they would not have us as
descendants. Mother nature doesn't care a whit after we have reproduced, if
we have reproduced, because once we have reproduced, our job of contributing
to the perpetuation of our species is done, and mother nature will hang us
out to dry.
So our genetic makeup is biased in favour of sexual urge, because that's how
we help perpetuate our species, and is not particularly suited to help us
live a happy life, especially after the reproductive decades. So we shall
charge in to procreate, regardless of how poor our genetic makeup is -- the
handicapped, like the blind and deaf, still reproduce like mad, though they
know that their children have a high chance of inheriting the handicap and
even passing it on to their children.
And once we get past the reproductive decades, we run into intractable
problems, like men's dual tendency (perhaps also in some women) to break up
internally into separate bits and pieces that float independently of each
other, and to freeze and harden mentally. In some men both tendencies are
active, which results in synergy, in that one factor will fortify the other
and vice versa.
Now it is true that men can reproduce until death, but genetic and social
factors favour the young and middle decades, and once past them, mother
nature doesn't care about us any more.
When the birth-control pill was invented, it was thought that those who had
poor genetic makeup would use it to not reproduce (to not transmit their bad
genes), and those who had good genes would reproduce. Now the politically
correct will jump up and down in furor and accuse me of callous elitism, but
the fact is that the poor keep on reproducing like rabbits while yuppies
nearly stop reproducing. And modern medicine and affluence conspire to help
keep the handicapped and those with poor genes firstly alive and secondly
reproducing like mad.
It's the opposite of natural selection.
Nearly the only thing that helps propagate good genes is that male medical
students donate sperms for artificial insemination.
Tang Huyen
GeirSmith
You can't take a specimen from a bad batch like with E.S.B.(in this case the
mad killer disease of vietnames/chinese communists) and reproduce them
serenely. You've got to kill the herd. And it ! Sorry Tang. Not for you Robert
!
epste...@my-deja.com
I have absolutely nothing against family loyalty. I am totally committed
to my family, so much so that I have foregone running around with women,
my main preoccupation for several decades prior to marriage, just because
I wouldn't want to do anything to unduly distress my wife.
And I do consider that a genuine form of compassion.
I am also the primary caregiver to my child, who is currently about 3
feet tall, by which I gauge that she is under 5. One of my great lessons
in life was to discover that I cared about my child more than I did about
myself. Before I met my wife and participated in the creation of my
daughter, it was very hard to imagine anything that was quite as
important to me as myself.
Having a family has taught me that the pull of the ego is not absolute
and it has helped me to loosen the grip of separation and self-enclosed
identity in very big ways.
I don't know if it's hard-wired in or not, but my immediate family is the
center of my life, and my first cousins seem to be slightly more
significant to me than my second cousins, etc. At the same time, I
recognize that there are some things that should be determined by merit.
Although my daughter has already shown signs of being a genius, I would
not want her to have a job she was not qualified for, and I would want to
hire someone who could do a particular job.
The habit in Hollywood of assuming that the child of someone with a
famous name will also be a well-known actor in their own right and have
all the benefits of having a famous parent, disgusts me. The fact that
someone like GW Bush, whose family makes sure that every child in their
family is at least a governor, if not actually president, and who himself
has never had a greater challenge than chewing gum and reading a stock
report at the same time, also disgusts me.
When it comes to heredity I celebrate the right of everyone to reproduce
and don't believe in making any genetic assessment of people. If two
parents have heart disease, should they *not* have a child because he may
have it too? Of course not. I believe in the spiritual and
psychophysical benefits of having a family under almost all
circumstances.
On the other hand, from a merely biological view, I think it is wrong to
laud the family network as a biological plus. Genetically it is a
distraction from the strengthening of the gene pool. I don't think we
can or should do anything about it. I am very leery of genetic
engineering. I don't think the strong should inherit the earth. But I
don't want to misrepresent Darwin, who has shown pretty well that
evolution results from survival of the fittest.
If family values makes us more fit and as a species makes us stronger,
that is an interesting possibility. But from the standpoint of what
individual genes are added to the gene pool, we get a lot more problems
in the pool by promoting the reproductive potential of those who cannot
do it on their own.
On the other hand, as a species, if we show compassion for everyone
equally, based on empathy and need, rather than on family politics, we
have a much more equalizing factor which favors all kinds of diversity
while not prejudicing the gene pool in the favor of powerful families.
If we let the powerful families run things based on their own loyalties,
we are bound to wind up with more GW types in positions of power, and
that's not good for anyone but comedians.
Robert
P.S. If you find my above musings confusing, I'm right there with ya!
P.P.S. Thanks for your comments on hilariously insulting original post.
This was the one that I was a little sensitive about, but don't let it
quash your future impulses. A nice D.T. is almost scarier than an
acerbic D.T., but in any case, we want a free D.T.
---------------------------------
In article <94cisu$qo6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
GeirSmith
Tantrism's answered to genetic speculation is a direct one. The Mahasiddhas'
consorts were generally prostitutes and the results were the tantric deities of
their meditations. We finally are their all-potent heirs.
DharmaTroll
epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Dear DT,
> I have absolutely nothing against family loyalty.
> I am totally committed to my family, so much so that
> I have foregone running around with women, my main
> preoccupation for several decades prior to marriage,
> just because I wouldn't want to do anything to unduly
> distress my wife.
>
> And I do consider that a genuine form of compassion.
That's sounds great, Rob. Now that's what I call living the Dharma.
> I am also the primary caregiver to my child, who is
> currently about 3 feet tall, by which I gauge that she
> is under 5.
You have to guess your daughter's age by her height? Can't you just
subtract the year she was born from the present year to get her age?
> One of my great lessons in life was to discover that I cared
> about my child more than I did about myself. Before I met my
> wife and participated in the creation of my daughter, it was
> very hard to imagine anything that was quite as important to me
> as myself.
That's great.
> I don't know if it's hard-wired in or not, but my immediate
> family is the center of my life, and my first cousins seem to be
> slightly more significant to me than my second cousins, etc.
I think that having a strong extended family is one of the most
important things in life. I've found that such people are the most
honest I've come across and have many friends also that they've known
for decades. Whereas the most dishonest people I've known usually don't
have a strong family background and turnover friends so that they don't
have many friends that have lasted more than 10 years, and they tend to
not stayed married for long.
> At the same time, I recognize that there are some things that
> should be determined by merit. Although my daughter has already
> shown signs of being a genius, I would not want her to have a job
> she was not qualified for, and I would want to hire someone who
> could do a particular job.
Well, yeah, that's only fair.
> The habit in Hollywood of assuming that the child of someone with a
> famous name will also be a well-known actor in their own right and
> have all the benefits of having a famous parent, disgusts me.
I have no problem with it. The idea is that the fondness for Kirk
Douglas, they will transfer their affections and familiarity to him,
which makes a lot of sense.
> The fact that someone like GW Bush, whose family makes sure that
> every child in their family is at least a governor, if not actually
> president, and who himself has never had a greater challenge than
> chewing gum
Your political opinions are rather naive. Nobody gets to be president
unless a lot of people vote for them, even if they win by a coin toss.
> When it comes to heredity I celebrate the right of everyone to
> reproduce and don't believe in making any genetic assessment of
> people.
I disagree.
> If two parents have heart disease, should they *not* have a child
> because he may have it too? Of course not.
I don't think we should interfere, but I think that they would be more
responsible to adopt. Why needlessly burden someone with that?
> I believe in the spiritual and psychophysical benefits of having
> a family under almost all circumstances.
Me too.
> On the other hand, from a merely biological view, I think it is
> wrong to laud the family network as a biological plus. Genetically
> it is a distraction from the strengthening of the gene pool.
I'm not sure it that is so.
> If family values makes us more fit and as a species makes us
> stronger, that is an interesting possibility. But from the
> standpoint of what individual genes are added to the gene pool,
> we get a lot more problems in the pool by promoting the
> reproductive potential of those who cannot do it on their own.
Ideally, I'd like to see people not allowed to reproduce unless they
were physically lacking serious genetic problems, were well educated,
and were married in a stable relationship for several years. But it
would never work, because there is too much corruption that always
takes place when the government or anyone else is in control, and
sooner or later racists or some political party memvers would try to
wipe out the part of the population that looked or thought differently,
so it would end up a disaster.
> On the other hand, as a species, if we show compassion for everyone
> equally, based on empathy and need, rather than on family politics,
> we have a much more equalizing factor which favors all kinds of
> diversity while not prejudicing the gene pool in the favor of
> powerful families.
Yes, I agree with that. Btw, I don't see George W., whom you so hate,
going around as President trying to impregnate as many females as he
can to pass on his family genes. (Though one might expect this from our
last president.) And until he tries such, I don't see how Bush genes
are going to spread more in the population than anyone else's.
> If we let the powerful families run things based on their own
> loyalties, we are bound to wind up with more GW types in positions
How did this conversation shift from your connection with your family
to your prejudices and spewing of stereotypes and hatred?
I'd like to see a philosopher/scientist/mathematician as President for
once. The smartest recent president we had was Jimmy Carter, who had an
advanced degree in nuclear physics as well as a photographic memory.
But he wasn't popular because he was too honest and nice, I suppose,
and didn't really get much accomplished. Then again, he didn't kill
anyone either, as far as I recall.
> P.S. If you find my above musings confusing, I'm right there with ya!
>
> P.P.S. Thanks for your comments on hilariously insulting original
> post. This was the one that I was a little sensitive about, but
> don't let it quash your future impulses. A nice D.T. is almost
> scarier than an acerbic D.T., but in any case, we want a free D.T.
>
> ---------------------------------
heh heh heh
se...@creosote.frazmtn.com
: In article <94g5q5$hor$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
: epste...@my-deja.com wrote:
[snip]
:> When it comes to heredity I celebrate the right of everyone to
:> reproduce and don't believe in making any genetic assessment of
:> people.
: I disagree.
Genetic assessment of people upon what guidelines?
:> If two parents have heart disease, should they *not* have a child
:> because he may have it too? Of course not.
: I don't think we should interfere, but I think that they would be more
: responsible to adopt. Why needlessly burden someone with that?
I agree with you here, it is the parents' decision. Adoption does seem to
be a greater good, but I don't have heart disease so I couldn't tell you how
someone with heart disease feels about their existence. If they were to
think that a person with heart disease was a burden on society then they
must also think that they themselves are a burden on society, and would have
been better off not being born, and that is not a reasonable attitude for
anyone to have. It's not an obvious choice at all.
:> I believe in the spiritual and psychophysical benefits of having
:> a family under almost all circumstances.
: Me too.
:> On the other hand, from a merely biological view, I think it is
:> wrong to laud the family network as a biological plus. Genetically
:> it is a distraction from the strengthening of the gene pool.
: I'm not sure it that is so.
:> If family values makes us more fit and as a species makes us
:> stronger, that is an interesting possibility. But from the
:> standpoint of what individual genes are added to the gene pool,
:> we get a lot more problems in the pool by promoting the
:> reproductive potential of those who cannot do it on their own.
: Ideally, I'd like to see people not allowed to reproduce unless they
: were physically lacking serious genetic problems, were well educated,
: and were married in a stable relationship for several years. But it
: would never work, because there is too much corruption that always
: takes place when the government or anyone else is in control, and
: sooner or later racists or some political party memvers would try to
: wipe out the part of the population that looked or thought differently,
: so it would end up a disaster.
I gotta disagree with ya here; your heart is in the right place but you
seem a bit heavy-handed. Hand-maintaining the gene pool is just a plain old
bad idea, and circumvents the process of natural selection, which has not
exactly failed us, let alone sets itself up against instincts to keep
variation in the gene pool. Education is far too subjective to judge, like
you mentioned in the thoughts about government control, and also the sad
fact is that some races are on average less educated as others, and this
would basically be bordering on genocide.
Also, go talk to a poor uneducated child sometime, or a child with a
genetic disorder, and ask him if he is glad he exists. Its hard to tell
people that their "type" is a burden on society and will be weeded out. They
are left with only one conclusion, that they are dead weight and useless.
Just because it is sad that people have genetic disorders doesn't mean that
we should sweep them under the rug.
As I see it the choice here is not if we should have disease around or not,
the choice is it better to live with a disease or not live at all.
Sean
DharmaTroll
<se...@creosote.frazmtn.com> wrote:
DT:
> : I don't think we should interfere, but I think that they
> : would be more responsible to adopt. Why needlessly burden
> : someone with that?
>
> I agree with you here, it is the parents' decision. Adoption
> does seem to be a greater good, but I don't have heart disease
> so I couldn't tell you how someone with heart disease feels
> about their existence. If they were to think that a person with
> heart disease was a burden on society then they must also think
> that they themselves are a burden on society, and would have
> been better off not being born,
No way. You can have some defect and fully accept yourself as a totally
ok and wanted person AND you can want your children to be better.
Your wacko conclusion has nothing to do with the issue. If we follow
your logic here, we should blind and mutilate our healthy children just
to convince them that they still aren't a burden!
Handicapped people in wheelchairs can live fulfilling, happy lives, but
also might not wish for their children to be confined to wheelchairs.
It would be terribly selfish to knowingly burden your children with
handicaps simply so your particular genes are in them, when you could
adopt and raise children not burdened in such a way. I think the choice
is very obvious, actually, if you are thinking of your kids and not
your own selfish motivations.
> : Ideally, I'd like to see people not allowed to reproduce unless
> : they were physically lacking serious genetic problems, were well
> : educated, and were married in a stable relationship for several
> : years. But it would never work, because there is too much
> : corruption that always takes place when the government or anyone
> : else is in control, and sooner or later racists or some political
> : party members would try to wipe out the part of the population
> : that looked or thought differently, so it would end up a disaster.
>
> I gotta disagree with ya here; your heart is in the right place
> but you seem a bit heavy-handed. Hand-maintaining the gene pool
> is just a plain old bad idea, and circumvents the process of natural
> selection, which has not exactly failed us, let alone sets itself up
> against instincts to keep variation in the gene pool. Education is
> far too subjective to judge, like you mentioned in the thoughts
> about government control, and also the sad fact is that some races
> are on average less educated as others, and this would basically be
> bordering on genocide.
You said you disagreed with me, but then you restated why I said it
would be a bad idea and added more. I'm actually in agreement with what
you said.
> Also, go talk to a poor uneducated child sometime, or a child
> with a genetic disorder, and ask him if he is glad he exists.
Of course he is. That's not the question. The question is whether he'd
reather exist as he is, or without the disorder. That's the question.
The kid will probably say without the disorder, all else being equal.
That's why it would be better for the parents to adopt and raise kids
without disorders rather than burden kids with disorders, as then their
kids grow up without them.
> Its hard to tell people that their "type" is a burden on society
Again, this is a totally fallacious argument. Wanting your kids to not
suffer the handicaps you did does not render you worthless or a burden.
> As I see it the choice here is not if we should have disease
> around or not, the choice is it better to live with a disease
> or not live at all.
For the living, yes. But for our children, we can choose that they live
healthy rather than crippled if we adopt if we have known genetic
disorders.
Zentech
DharmaTroll <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:94jbcn$71n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> For the living, yes. But for our children, we can choose that they live
> healthy rather than crippled if we adopt if we have known genetic
> disorders.
>
> --DT
I hope this is not too annoying for you, and I apologize if it is, but I am
going to continue with my ideas on abstractions. I've noticed you have a
wonderful mix of controversial subjects, rock solid logic and non-commital
statements in your arsenal. As far as I'm concerned there is no way to
refute the above statement (though it would be interesting to see you try)
nor have you given any opinion on whether to "choose" is right or wrong,
thus leaving it open for some sucker to come along and offer their opinion
of whether people should. Not only are you shooting fish in a barrel but
you've got the fish jumping into the barrel.
Now I will ride the back of your logic...
If the parents *choose* to have a healthy child by adoption, *natural*
selection has been by-passed. In essence the genes have been introduced to
the environment by *unnatural* selection (rational selection I guess, but if
there is another term for it please let me know). The premise of evolution
is that species adapt to the environment by natural selection...but this
isn't happening with adoption, the parents are *thinking* about what traits
they want. The abstraction of the genetic code has morphed into an
abstraction of thought about what is most likely to survive the environment,
the genetic code has travelled vertically. This is all true, if the
abstractions are travelling but they could just be physical interaction
residue.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your logic, mine's just cooler.
Brian
se...@creosote.frazmtn.com
: <se...@creosote.frazmtn.com> wrote:
: DT:
:> : I don't think we should interfere, but I think that they
:> : would be more responsible to adopt. Why needlessly burden
:> : someone with that?
:>
:> I agree with you here, it is the parents' decision. Adoption
:> does seem to be a greater good, but I don't have heart disease
:> so I couldn't tell you how someone with heart disease feels
:> about their existence. If they were to think that a person with
:> heart disease was a burden on society then they must also think
:> that they themselves are a burden on society, and would have
:> been better off not being born,
: No way. You can have some defect and fully accept yourself as a totally
: ok and wanted person AND you can want your children to be better.
No matter how sick you are or how well you are you would want your child to
be 'better' than you, it's just human nature.
: Your wacko conclusion has nothing to do with the issue. If we follow
: your logic here, we should blind and mutilate our healthy children just
: to convince them that they still aren't a burden!
I don't see how you came to that conclusion. I don't think any reasonable
person would suggest that.
Besides, I basically agreed with you, if I were in a position where I had
genetic heart disease I would probably adopt, in the name of the greater
good, but, the human procreation instinct is strong, and I was merely trying
to write some of the issues in which it would manifest itself for the
deciding parents.
We do not find ourselves in the position of having to decide this difficult
moral decision of whether or not we should adopt, so let's not take a
self-righteous view of it and say definitively what we would and would not
do. After all, we both said that it is the parents' decision.
: Handicapped people in wheelchairs can live fulfilling, happy lives, but
: also might not wish for their children to be confined to wheelchairs.
: It would be terribly selfish to knowingly burden your children with
: handicaps simply so your particular genes are in them, when you could
: adopt and raise children not burdened in such a way. I think the choice
: is very obvious, actually, if you are thinking of your kids and not
: your own selfish motivations.
Well if I am ugly, or not intelligent, should I adopt a child who is smart,
or attractive, to keep the world from having to put up with another stupid
ugly kid? The lines here are not nearly as clear cut.
You seem to be writing as if I said that I would have children in spite of a
serious genetic disorder. Remember I said that I would probably adopt.
The only point of contention between you and I seems to be that word
_probably_, and even you said that the parents should _have_ a decision, so
_probably_ is a necessary viewpoint to take to be objective on the issue.
:> : Ideally, I'd like to see people not allowed to reproduce unless
:> : they were physically lacking serious genetic problems, were well
:> : educated, and were married in a stable relationship for several
:> : years. But it would never work, because there is too much
:> : corruption that always takes place when the government or anyone
:> : else is in control, and sooner or later racists or some political
:> : party members would try to wipe out the part of the population
:> : that looked or thought differently, so it would end up a disaster.
:>
:> I gotta disagree with ya here; your heart is in the right place
:> but you seem a bit heavy-handed. Hand-maintaining the gene pool
:> is just a plain old bad idea, and circumvents the process of natural
:> selection, which has not exactly failed us, let alone sets itself up
:> against instincts to keep variation in the gene pool. Education is
:> far too subjective to judge, like you mentioned in the thoughts
:> about government control, and also the sad fact is that some races
:> are on average less educated as others, and this would basically be
:> bordering on genocide.
: You said you disagreed with me, but then you restated why I said it
: would be a bad idea and added more. I'm actually in agreement with what
: you said.
Yeah, we were expressing the same fears different ways, you are right. I
just didn't like your 'Ideal' because of that 'were well educated' bit. I
don't believe in the strength of the measurement called 'education'.
We both see that hand selection of genetic material is a bad idea. I'm not
sure but I think we completely agree on all this.
:> Also, go talk to a poor uneducated child sometime, or a child
:> with a genetic disorder, and ask him if he is glad he exists.
: Of course he is. That's not the question. The question is whether he'd
: reather exist as he is, or without the disorder. That's the question.
: The kid will probably say without the disorder, all else being equal.
: That's why it would be better for the parents to adopt and raise kids
: without disorders rather than burden kids with disorders, as then their
: kids grow up without them.
But my point was that _particular_ kid wouldn't have ever had the choice to be
born without that disorder. The valid question to ask him would be 'Would
you rather exist with a genetic disorder, or would you rather have had your
place taken by a healthy adopted child who would enjoy a better life based
on your sacrifice?'
:> Its hard to tell people that their "type" is a burden on society
: Again, this is a totally fallacious argument. Wanting your kids to not
: suffer the handicaps you did does not render you worthless or a burden.
It does render you, or at least people with your handicap, as living a 'less
desirable' way to live. Otherwise why would you not want that handicap in
your children?
My comment was in response to your 'Ideal' of reproduction requirements, not
to the heart-disease scenario.
:> As I see it the choice here is not if we should have disease
:> around or not, the choice is it better to live with a disease
:> or not live at all.
: For the living, yes. But for our children, we can choose that they live
: healthy rather than crippled if we adopt if we have known genetic
: disorders.
But those children are genetically not 'ours' if we adopt.
I'm sorry if I keep splitting hairs, but it seems like you are always edging
towards this creepy 'weed out the weak' attitude.
Anyway like I said I'm not sure but I think we agree.
Sean
Zentech
Brian
Zentech <zen...@starryeyed.com> wrote in message
news:h4vb6.16802$c6.14...@news1.rdc1.mb.home.com...
Gleason Pace
> What? Nothing to say about this? I demand what is coming to me.
>
> Brian
Noah Sombrero
NeoLazarus
heh heh
Zentech
news:yzDc6.321861$U46.10...@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
Finally a straight answer. No questions but I am losing interest in the
subject of abstractions. It needs some fine-tuning and some more accurate
big scientific words. Those will come when I find a better medium to
exploit my *fantasy* theories.
Soon I will be introducing the two gods of science order and chaos into my
grand picture of the universe.
Untill then I have some social skills to work on.
Brian
DharmaTroll
"Zentech" <zen...@starryeyed.com> wrote:
> What? Nothing to say about this? I demand what is coming to me.
>
> Brian
Sorry, overtaxed with too many replies to handle at once lately.
Ok, you said:
> If the parents *choose* to have a healthy child by adoption,
> *natural* selection has been by-passed. In essence the genes
> have been introduced to the environment by *unnatural* selection
Well, have they? I mean, it's not like people who don't adapt to their
environment die these days: rather, they go on welfare and then breed
like rabbits anyway. So you're not thwarting natural selection.
> The premise of evolution is that species adapt to the environment
> by natural selection...but this isn't happening with adoption,
> the parents are *thinking* about what traits they want.
Are they? I was just talking about adopting a healthy baby of any kind,
not tailor-selecting features. My point was that adopting a healthy
baby would be preferable if there was a strong chance that if you had
one of your own it would be crippled in some way.
> The abstraction of the genetic code has morphed into an abstraction
> of thought about what is most likely to survive the environment,
> the genetic code has travelled vertically. This is all true, if
> the abstractions are travelling but they could just be physical
> interaction residue.
>
> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your logic, mine's just
> cooler.
Different, and yes, a cooler idea to think about. If we take the next
step of evolution in our own hands and tinker with and improve our DNA,
then it is a cooler idea. And because changes happen so quickly, a lot
more dangerous. That is always the payoff with evolution: the slower
the change the more stable; the quicker the gain the more unstable.
Same is true for volatility in the stock market and growth versus value
stocks. Altering DNA is like investing in a fast-growing stock with
very high volatility: you can make a fortune or you can lose it all.
Btw, Brian, I did mention some ideas about altering DNA and the genetic
code thus morphing into abstract thought and traveling orthagonally. It
was the "Stephen Hawking is Totally Awesome" thread. A different, but
similar passage to the one I quoted last time is below.
--DT
<< Stephen Hawking writes:
Because biological evolution is basically a random walk in the space of
all genetic possibilities it has been very slow. The complexity, or
number of bits of information that are coded in DNA is given roughly by
the number of nucleic acids in the molecule. Each bit of information
can be thought of as the answer to a yes no question. For the first two
billion years or so the rate of increase in complexity must have been
of the order of one bit of information every hundred years.
The rate of increase of DNA complexity gradually rose to about one bit
a year over the last few million years. But now we are at the beginning
of a new era in which we will be able to increase the complexity of our
DNA without having to wait for the slow process of biological
evolution. There has been no significant change in human DNA in the
last ten thousand years. But it is likely that we will be able to
completely redesign it in the next thousand. Of course many people will
say that genetic engineering on humans should be banned. But I rather
doubt if they will be able to prevent it. Genetic engineering on plants
and animals will be allowed for economic reasons and someone is bound
to try it on humans. Unless we have a totalitarian world order, someone
will design improved humans somewhere.
Clearly developing improved humans will create great social and
political problems with respect to unimproved humans. I'm not
advocating human genetic engineering as a good thing, I'm just saying
that it is likely to happen in the next millennium, whether we want it
or not. This is why I don't believe science fiction like Star Trek
where people are essentially the same four hundred years in the future.
I think the human race, and its DNA, will increase its complexity quite
rapidly.
In a way the human race needs to improve its mental and physical
qualities if it is to deal with the increasingly complex world around
it and meet new challenges like space travel. And it also needs to
increase its complexity if biological systems are to keep ahead of
electronic ones. At the moment computers have an advantage of speed,
but they show no sign of intelligence. This is not surprising because
our present computers are less complex than the brain of an earthworm,
a species not noted for their intellectual powers.
But computers obey Moore's Law put forward by Gordon Moore of Intel.
This says that their speed and complexity double every 18 months. It is
one of these exponential growths which clearly can not continue
indefinitely. However it will probably continue until computers have a
similar complexity to the human brain. Some people say that computers
can never show true intelligence whatever that may be. But it seems to
me that if very complicated chemical molecules can operate in humans to
make them intelligent then equally complicated electronic circuits can
also make computers act in an intelligent way. And if they are
intelligent they can presumably design computers that have even greater
complexity and intelligence.
This is why I don't believe the science fiction picture of an advanced
but constant future. Instead, I expect complexity to increase at a
rapid rate, both in the biological and electronic spheres. Not much of
this will happen in the next hundred years, which is all we can
reliably predict. But by the end of the next millennium, if we get
there, the change will be fundamental.
Lincoln Steffens once said, "I have seen the future and it works." He
was actually talking about the Soviet Union, which we now know didn't
work very well. Nevertheless, I think the present world order has a
future, but it will be very different.
Gleason Pace
> subject of abstractions. It needs some fine-tuning and some more accurate
> big scientific words. Those will come when I find a better medium to
> exploit my *fantasy* theories.
They are abstractions for you. For some others, not so. But is true
that the eternal rational arguing of some of our comrades here function
as abstractions even though they are made to appear otherwise and
are presented with thundering certainty.
Nothing I have said to you has been an unstraight answer. Look
to your understanding. If you find it lacking in some way,
don't be surprised if it still lacks a week from now and a year from
now. There is no reason to assume that either one of us has
all the tools we need to make sense of the universe. In fact it
is not likely that we ever will.
Noah Sombrero
zentec...@my-deja.com
> > If the parents *choose* to have a healthy
child by adoption,
> > *natural* selection has been by-passed. In
essence the genes
> > have been introduced to the environment by
*unnatural* selection
>
> Well, have they? I mean, it's not like people
who don't adapt to their
> environment die these days: rather, they go on
welfare and then breed
> like rabbits anyway. So you're not thwarting
natural selection.
If they don't die and breed they've obviously
adapted. <Yawn>
>
> > The premise of evolution is that species
adapt to the environment
> > by natural selection...but this isn't
happening with adoption,
> > the parents are *thinking* about what traits
they want.
>
> Are they? I was just talking about adopting a
healthy baby of any kind,
> not tailor-selecting features. My point was
that adopting a healthy
> baby would be preferable if there was a strong
chance that if you had
> one of your own it would be crippled in some
way.
>
Healthy could be considered a tailor-selected
feature. <Yawn>
Isn't there entropy theory in there somewhere? I
heard them talk about it on the Canadian
Discovery channel but I might have totally missed
the point.
>
> Btw, Brian, I did mention some ideas about
altering DNA and the genetic
> code thus morphing into abstract thought and
traveling orthagonally. It
> was the "Stephen Hawking is Totally Awesome"
thread.
> --DT
Good for me. I now feel more confident about my
ideas.
zentec...@my-deja.com
Thanks, Noah. You are a great help.
Brian