Provoking Thought About NOMA
by MikeGeneTelic Thoughts member, Thought Provoker, writes:
I am mindful of the length this thread is getting, but I didn't know where else to respond.
Well, here y'go, TP. The thread is all yours to gently guide.
Telic Thoughts member, Thought Provoker, writes:
I am mindful of the length this thread is getting, but I didn't know where else to respond.
Well, here y'go, TP. The thread is all yours to gently guide.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Thanks Mike. But you know how much trouble I have with definitions. What does "gently" mean?
Ok, I will try to be polite. Joy brings that out in me anyway…
Hi Joy,
You wrote…
Thank you for your direct answer. As you are no doubt aware, I don't consider the side with over 2 Billion faithful followers to be an "underdog" especially since those followers make up the bulk of all three branches of government.
Now don't go waking up poor Charley. With NOMA, we are actually talking about religion as religion. I believe in previous threads you indicated that you actively fought against teaching religion in public schools and you may believe this is a "post wedge world". However, I think this is the pause before a big push, possibly the "final battle". You can drag out old Charlie if you want to but, IMO, the Discovery Institute only changes it's banners and tactics, not its mission. If you are counting on the masses being aware of anything; the masses voted Rodney King's violent arrest as the most significant event in the same year of the first Gulf War and the breakup of the Soviet Union. At the end of 1991, the Rodney King tape was playing on TV along with the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings overshadowing all the earlier events.
Heisenberg was the nose of the camel. We are passing the "hopelessly" point as we speak, IMO. This isn't a matter of choice or wishes. Many may want Einstein's declaration that "God doesn't play dice" to be true, but it isn't.
What do you think of Penrose's premise in the book Shadows of the mind : A search for the missing science of consciousness and his quantum consciousness model? (Note to listening audience: As a physicist, Penrose is a peer of Hawking)
"The quantum consciousness model…could in principle help lead the way to a new theory of physics that could repair a serious hole (to some) in quantum mechanics. Penrose believes such a theory will come to light sooner or later, whether or not he is right about consciousness–but it could happen sooner if the model proves correct. What a great practical joke nature will have played on us if all the thinking that has gone into uncovering the ultimate laws of the universe turns out to reveal that one of the biggest clues was woven all along into the very fabric of thought itself." link (closing paragraph)
That sounds like a blending of science and metaphysics to me.
This is why I am struggling with NOT seeing that science and religion are on a major collision course. Like a lot of other quaint custom, NOMA is doomed regardless of how pleasant it was to have around, in my opinion.
What do you think?
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 10, 2007 @ 11:09 pm
May 10th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Hi all listeners,
Please excuse an opening post that is in the middle of a conversation. Consider this the flash back to explain things.
First of all, I have a habit of "provoking" in very ungentle ways at times on TT. In other words, I try to ask uncomfortable questions of ID proponents.
NOMA is one of my latest provoking topics. A lot of ID proponents reject it openly. I believe even more do it in secret. I believe Joy is in earnest, by her words and deeds. Of course, Dawkins and Myers reject NOMA from the other side of the Culture War.
"Retrocausality" is the concept of future causes affecting past events. I use it in my ID proposal. link
"Charlie" refers to a walking corpse of what Joy and others would like to consider a "dead issue". I am not privy to the exact issue, but it usually has something to do with ID being inherently religious.
Everything else can be looked up via Google. With the possible exception of who Joy is.
Joy is one of the most intelligent people I have had the pleasure to meet. I accuse her of being coy, almost an intellectual flirt. Sure, she throws the common rhetoric back and forth but then every so often she drops a hint. You know, like how my ideas are similar to Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis. Sure, right. Let me look that up.
From Alchemy to naked singularities she just drops them into the middle of conversations about how most ID critics pretend they know more than they know. The interesting thing is that her hints are spot-on relative to the discussion and, for ever one I have checked, they are accurate.
And what, pray-tell, is her professed occupation you might ask"¦
"Professional Fool"
Sure, Joy, sure.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 10, 2007 @ 11:35 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Hi Mike,
I really appreciate you putting up this thread for me. However, I don't think a "gently guide" approach is going to work. So, if you don't mind, could you please not read the rest of this and, maybe, focus on some of the other interesting threads for a day or two.
Thanks Again,
TP
……. Mike, have you stopped reading yet? ….
Alright all you lilly-livered cowards. What are you afraid of? So what if you don't have any facts to back up your opinions, that has never stopped you before. This is about thinking for yourselves, so THINK!
As we speak, scientists are generating reams of peer-reviewed papers for the express purpose of showing materialist mechanisms for things like homosexuality being caused by a "gay gene". No right and wrong, it just is. And in case you want to argue a nature/nuture duality, the scheming scientists have an answer for that. More reams of peer-reviewed papers showing how social interactions are governed by gene-like mechanisms called memes. Scientists are implying that morality is a myth, and if it isn't, sciencists have even more reams of peer-reviewed papers studying the whys and wherefores of it. It's all science. Religion, while an interesting subject to be studied, has no right to be considered as having value to real scientists studying real science. And that is what should be taught to YOUR children and you have no right to expect science teachers to even allow alternative thought.
Now, of course, there is a religious counter-argument. Science has no idea what causes gravity, yet they teach it in schools as fact. Can scientists detect gravitons? Do they even know if they exist? It is all conjecture and "just so" stories. It is all a religious argument that shouldn't be allowed to be presented as reality. It is vital that science should be presented as "just a theory", not fact. Especially in the area of evolution.
A possible answer to the seemingly insurmoutable conflict of NOMA is expanding the definition of science, or starting a new discipline, to facilite the combination of metaphysics and physics with the intent of postulating a single, mutual OMA model.
Ok, so is NOMA or OMA the right answer?
Do you have INDEPENDENT THOUGHTS beyond the talking points spoon fed to you by PR organizations?
Well do ya, punk?
Provoking Thought
P.S. Just keep this conversation between us and don't tell MikeGene.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 11, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
TP:
Thanks to Mike for the thread!
Hi, TP. It's not who runs the government that is the issue here, since government isn't the problem. Because we are in a semi-democracy, the majority position any way you care to slice it is going to be the majority in government. Yet our system was chartered with effective (until very recently) checks and balances as well as specifically enumerated limitations on the exercise of power. The FFs [Founding Fathers] apparently understood the inherent corruptions of power quite well, and tried their best to guard against them. Though I think they'd be rather shocked and dismayed that we haven't had a revolution every generation since…
The power being played on this issue at this point in time is big-s Science, the most powerful collective institution humanity ever invented. It has long outstripped the petty powers of governments, even those of "superpowers" back in the good ol' cold war, which I remember well because I fought in that one. Between us [US] and them [USSR], more ideas and discoveries got classified than were existent from the entire history of humankind at the beginning of the Century of Big Wars.
Yet the knowledge managed to get passed through the scientific community across borders of stone, iron and steel anyway - because that's how science was designed and brave scientists (mostly physicists and chemists) found their loyalties undivided by politics. Many great minds were extinguished in the purges, gulags and internal exiles imposed by governments who found out their 'secrets' weren't so secret from anyone but the citizens who paid their bills.
This was science at its idealistic Best, an era now forgotten by a new generation in the pursuit of designed obsolescence gadgets, patented genes, fake staple foods and expensive treatments that make billionaires out of glorified lab-rats. Very sad. Biology is now more than the bratty red-headed stepchild - it's a full-fledged semi-adult delinquent believing it can rule the world and not shy of vice to get its way. It carries a whole different kind of threat that hasn't been closely examined, and it makes me very nervous for what it portends. For science as much as for society.
Heisenberg at least understood that the language for concepts and phenomena in the weird world of the quantum was entirely insufficient to describe what's 'real' on that level, and that because of the insufficiency the researchers were thinking in way too concrete terms. He realized that what was being described were mere behaviors, not actual things-in-themselves like we encounter in classical reality. These behaviors presented a quandry because the simple choice of what to measure determined the descriptions of phenomena, yet those descriptions refer to entirely contradictory and mutually exclusive things.
What he tried to do was loosen the mind-fetters that shackle everyone's understandings of the world to mundane cause and effect. Not all the minds were freed by his effort, so we've a good deal of serious misunderstanding still. I personally think Einstein was right, because he grasped the weirdness Heisenberg was trying to liberate. God does not play dice with the universe. He plays a particularly mean game of billiards.
Note that dice and billiards rely on entirely different actuators. Dice is a game of chance - if the dice aren't loaded, no amount of tossing skill will produce a reliably predictable outcome. Billiards is all about skill, the ability to produce perfect collisions that produce perfect trajectories toward a goal, and the carefully plotted exchanges of energy required to finish a shot.
I think he's onto something. And while I'm not convinced the operator is quantum gravity, I do think the Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR [Orchestrated Objective Reduction] model is the best yet for translating the 'hard problem' of consciousness, at least on the mainstream forefront. I think he's purposely ignored the likelihood of extra dimensions, possibly because he wants to go down in history as the one who produced a T-shirt sized equation that works in 3+1 (something we can understand without appeal to causes that exist beyond our experiential reality).
I took the UA course in Quantum Consciousness in 2000 (profs included Penrose, Hameroff, Chalmers, Stapp, Alwin and other notables), and quite enjoyed the stimulation of my very rusty mind. You wouldn't believe the list of supplemental reading I had to wade through before getting there! Hadn't practiced that knowledge for 20 years, but I was confronted with a miracle of consciousness I wanted to understand if that is possible. The notion that consciousness is linked to a fundamental parameter of space-time appealed to me, and does help to answer some of the questions. Heck, I even sneaked my password to Matti Pitkaanen so he could follow, since I couldn't afford to pay his way and he's always been a starving mathematician! I was the secret TGD plant there, like I'm the not-so secret EAM plant here… §;o)
And this is precisely the reason science has so carefully avoided the minefield of consciousness for the entirety of its existence, beyond the nitty-gritty of mechanical operations of the brain. The Cartesian divide was accepted on principle even by materialists who never bought the idea that there was a 'hard problem' in the first place, because no one wanted to find that there's something more to consciousness than mechanical operations.
Then baby boomer AI-guys stepped straight into the quagmire with their transhumanist-like dreams of conscious machines and mechanical immortality. Having made more billions of dollars than anyone is entitled to with their computers and gadgets, they determined to fund the quest to quantify consciousness - with basically unlimited wealth. Scientists, even famous scientists, are easily bought. It's part of the training - go where the money is. I appreciate the variety of disciplines brought into the stable, including philosophers and theologians. These are absolutely necessary if science is planning world-shattering developments.
So yes, metaphysics is indeed involved. And you end up with the very same type of dueling metaphysics we see every day in forums like this between philosophical materialists [EAs] and theists who still believe in transcendent truths. Henry Stapp confidently predicted during one session that it would be 200 years before they'd even come up with a working definition of the phenomenon they're trying to quantify, because of this dueling metaphysics. On this front I do not expect to live long enough to see real results. We've generations still to go and not everyone is going to like the results we get.
In this you are very correct that the NOMA/OMA divide needs to be addressed. But if the players are predicting at least 200 years for a simple definition of terms, we aren't going to settle the issue here.
Aw, shucks!
Comment by Joy — May 11, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
TP:
While I'm here avoiding real work, I'll offer my thoughts on your issue. As I mentioned, I doubt we'll settle the matter here, because of the dueling metaphysics involved. If there was ever a perennial pastime for human beings, it's dueling metaphysics. Everybody wants to be right, while everybody's wrong.
I support the effort to quantify consciousness (that so-slippery slope) within the 3+1 paradigm. Because extrapolations to things that must always remain entirely speculative *ARE* metaphysics. To understand the mechanics of consciousness - and by extension all of the animate and inanimate world - is vital for our purpose of control over the world. This is science's job description, and biology always had a seat next to physics at the head of that table if it ever decided to grow up and tackle the hard stuff. That is now beginning.
Quite a few ancient and endearingly naive conceptions of who and what we are will be dashed to pieces in the quest. That's the risk to theist views. But I predict quite a few modern materialistic concepts will suffer the same sad fate. I think there are elements of both religion and science that will be mortally wounded in the quest, so the trick is to deliver the wounds with impeccable timing so as not to cause the downfall of the quest itself by reaction to the threat out in regular civilization.
IOW, I don't believe the biblical literalists, the jihadist throw-backs or the evangelical atheists can win. I think they'll all get knocked clean out of the ring within just a few decades. Worse, I won't be the least bit sorry to see them go…
That said, there will probably always be marginalized sects that adhere to these metaphysical systems long after the systems themselves have been effectively boxed. And they'll have to be tolerated so long as they remain harmless to the rest of society. Here is a NOMA that will not be 'eradicated' from humanity. There's just no accounting for what some people choose to believe, and there's nothing society can do to control their minds. Persecution isn't a good answer to any of it, so humanity will be living with a minority population of wingnuts for as long as humanity exists. That's okay.
We need to get to the point where we can all agree to accept a NOMA whenever the individual rights of the people beg expression. Anything less than that involves legislation, persecution and possibly all the fearful tactics of the ugly side of eugenics. This must be carefully guarded against, and here is where my concern for the underdog comes in.
I believe in freedom, and respect individual liberties. This is the best way to ensure a future for the many, and I'm a real fascist-hater. Totalitarianism lurks behind every human desire for everyone to believe in the very same things, in the very same ways. It's not possible to produce, yet tyrants keep on trying. NOMA *must* then be preserved in any scheme that the AI-guys believe will someday offer them the benefits of immortality without the cost in faith.
Which means OMA can only go so far. The metaphysical line in the sand is clear and straight. It must be respected by all. Individuals may then choose for themselves to go with one of the gazillion scientism cults that will spring up, or stay with a more traditional metaphysics. All must be guaranteed the freedom to make this choice, even though it represents the most significant challenge to our collective freedom of will that humanity has ever faced. Today's multicultural environments are just the very tip of the iceberg. Really.
Comment by Joy — May 11, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
It's not clear that the demarcation lines between science and philosophy are clear, and thus that it's always clear what even constitutes a violation of NOMA.
Previously, I've given two examples of where this demarcation problem is likely to arise:
1. The concept of mind
2. The concept of laws of nature
It's especially acute when one thinks about the notion of a mind designing laws of nature. And it's also acute when one thinks of the notion of what, if anything, science can discover about what, if any, laws govern the nature of minds.
One way to think about a law of nature is that it's a type of code—a set of instructions, rules or algorithms, expressed in a language. Languages come in lots of varieties—mathematical, programming, DNA, and spoken human languages. The question may be asked, how can unintentional material processes generate abstract entities like languages.
But suppose the laws of nature are, collectively, a kind of mathematical language or program. Then, even if unintententional material processes could somehow generate codes such as DNA and human language, such processes could not have generated the laws of nature, since those laws are logically prior to any material processes they govern.
To avoid this conclusion, it seems that naturalism has to posit a multiverse. For although one might reply that the laws of nature could be necessarily unique and necessarily existent, this wouldn't answer Stephen Hawkins' questions:
In other words, even if the laws of nature are a unique and necessary mathematical structure or model, that wouldn't explain why or how they conjure up a universe, or even a multiverse to govern. And mathematical models not being themselves material entities, one can't even appeal to magicmatter. Instead one would have to appeal to magiclaws.
But, as Hawking's questions imply, we never see abstractions causing any concrete effect in reality. By contrast, we know that minds both design models and then act to cause those models to be instantiated in reality. Likewise, we know that minds design laws and then implement them to govern society. So, inductively we have better evidence for minds being causally effective than we do for abstractions being causally effective. We never say things implying abstractions are material causes (except metaphorically in phrases like, 'Differential equations give me a headache'. What gives the headache is not the equations, but rather, thinking about them.)
Comment by stunney — May 11, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
To add to this, I think looking at a possible demarcation between science and philosophy is actually misguided since philosophy is ultimately a first-order discipline and science a second-order discipline (that's the whole reason for having philosophy of science). Science, in my opinion, is intrinsically dependent on philosophy, so even if there are clear boundaries, that's not going to mean that there won't be any interaction between the two disciplines, and in fact, there must be interaction because of the nature of the first-/second-order relation. So I generally reject NOMA at least to some degree: there may be areas philosophy (or theology, religion, what-have-you) investigates but not science (and perhaps vice versa, but I haven't made up my mind on that).
Comment by thechristiancynic — May 11, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Hi Joy,
In case there was any doubt, you are one of the main reasons why I have expended the energy I have at Telic Thoughts. I consider my training in engineering the art of making complicated things simple, but not "too" simple. One of my engineering professors warned us over and over, "make sure you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". This stuck with me, so I tend to make a thorough search of things I don't think are relevant before discarding them. It is no secret I classify the "ID Movement" as mostly garbage. First MikeGene and then you prevented me from simply throwing the garbage out by forcing me to consider the possibility that there is something of value hidden in it.
You have shown that my efforts were not in vain. Thank You.
I probably speak for all of us mere mortals when I say that you have intimidated us to speechlessness. However, I don't have the luxury of reverting to lurker status since I started this whole mess. Therefore, with much trepidation, I will attempt to respond to you by pretending I know what I am talking about. You wrote"¦
I am relieved that you feel I am correct about something because I am not feeling as confident in my ability to argue otherwise. I, also, agree that we aren't going to settle the issue here and I can't dispute your "at least 200 years" estimate (and don't want to try). My fear is that it will take much longer than that due to the collective stupidity of the masses.
I am probably not understanding something. But when you say "3+1 paradigm" I presume you are talking about three dimensions plus time. I understand the idea that multiple universes is metaphysical because there is absolutely no way to confirm it is anything other than "entirely speculative". However, I understood the multiple dimensions of various string theories if be actual physical dimensions (not metaphysical) that have the possibility of being empirically tested. Whether the final answer is 8, 10, 11, etc. dimensions, I thought we would actually exist in all of those dimensions with three, plus time, being easily detected and the remaining being harder to detect, maybe extremely so.
I think you and I have similar visions of the goals and consequences of pursuing a mutual, OMA model. I think our major differences are mostly in the practical answer of what to do in the meantime. I do not trust religious masses to resist the need to act on what they see as moral imperatives. Far too many people see this as an "either or" situation. Either science or eternal damnation. Civilization has lost its way scientifically before. I see no reason for confidence it won't lose its way again.
It is the organized mob driven by unthinking passion that I fear. I suspect you don't fear it as much as I do. I think I have said enough for now and I see stunney and thechristiancynic have bravely offered opinions.
I look forward to reading your response.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 11, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I'm with that.
Yeah.
Comment by onething — May 11, 2007 @ 5:02 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Ditto.
BTW I dont think there is any such thing as a "literal" biblical literalist.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 11, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Hi Stunney,
You scum-sucking son of a… err… um…
Hi Mike!
Stunney and I were just discussing the subtle nuances of our different concepts concerning NOMA. I want to thank you again for putting up this thread. I am sure it will be a bonding experience for us all, allowing us to look past our petty differences. Where was I? Oh yea…
Stunney, thank you for this thoughtful comment…
I think most of us would agree that a multiverse hypothesis is inherently metaphysical. I suggest this is what Hawking is saying in the quote you provided. I can agree that, instead of rejecting NOMA, we could just move the demarcation line to a threshold of what absolutely can't be known either by empirical testing or by philosophical logic.
Violations of this kind of NOMA would be clearly identifiable as any claims of knowing what is unknowable or even suggestions of insight into which unknowable explanations are better than others.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 11, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
im swamped right at the moment, but i will add my two cents soon enough. thanks mike for giving tp the torch for this little bit. i think its a great topic for us to flesh out, see where everyone stands, so to speak, and generate some new ideas and what not.
Comment by dantedanti — May 11, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I think this is an excellent start but where would the historical sciences fit in? How would one go about empirically testing the existence of Alexander the Great?
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 11, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
TP:
The masses aren't actually that stupid, and they're getting more sophisticated all the time despite the rather spectacular failures of our public education system over the last 4 decades. Individually, people are the smartest critters on the planet. But collectively there's a great deal they don't care about knowing. If there's one Big Lesson I've managed to learn in my life, it's that no one can make anybody care about what they don't want to know.
Thus if scientists keep their wits about them - actually play the role they chose to play when they decided to go into science - the incremental (but BIG) changes that come about in the next decades and centuries don't have to cause a massive social implosion. The public will just keep on buying the gadgets and goodies and living their lives. Denouncing the sort of radical threatiness being shouted from the rooftops by the 'New Atheists' couldn't hurt either. They are far too impatient to be a real part of the quest, but will destroy it (and much of science with it) if science isn't careful. They're frightened of the Grail of consciousness for what it could reveal about things they don't want to know.
Getting a good handle on space and time here where we live is prerequisite to understanding the things (matter, energy) that exist and interact in space and time. If there are further dimensions in which WE exist in time, it's entirely possible that we might access them empirically. We probably already do, at least a few of us do. Researches into psy phenomena has a terrible reputation out in the public world, where we get dismissals and nay-sayers and famous crooked magicians out to debunk entire realms of fairly 'normal' human experience.
But there is the doorway to any and all other dimensions pertinent to our sojourn through time. Again, this ties in with your retrocausality suspicions, via a sideways movement through one or more dimensions apart from our own three. As usual, it all boils down to the true nature of time.
If it is impossible to develop a consistent model of reality without invoking extra dimensions, then we'll have to accept that it's the best we can do. Yet if the predictions aren't completely unique and confirmable for such a model, belief-in it is always going to be a personal option. If science ever gives up on its guiding philosophy that reality is real [FAPP], there's no point in doing science.
Notice I didn't say reality must turn out to be internally consistent, but just the model of it we create for the practical purposes of control. Ask some random strangers sometime whether reality is internally consistent and a majority would laugh out loud. "Everybody knows" reality is merely absurd!
I think you may be overestimating the opposition. You said you don't consider religion to be the underdog because there are billions of religious people in the world. But there are hundreds of religions, content to fight amongst themselves endlessly over who's blessed and who isn't. They didn't create nuclear weapons or designer plagues with the sole purpose of mass murder on the level of billions. Science did that, then gave the weapons to their political puppetmasters to threaten humanity with. The truth isn't so buried that it cannot ever rise again - the ultimate power belongs rightfully to the people. All they ever had to do is stop being afraid. Dawkins and gang aren't helping that goal any, but there are loudmouth fear and hate mongers on all sides. Wingnut minorities. You can't fool all the people all the time.
Mobs are scary and that's why timing has to be impeccable. The wingnuts and loudmouths will eventually be marginalized by their own misplaced passion. But you're right that science could be stopped pretty much in its tracks if the public turns firmly against it. Humanity would survive and it might be a lot less costly than what the 'New Atheists' are foolishly advocating. People's freedom to choose their metaphysical beliefs about who and what they are, practice them in peace, and have them respected (or tolerated) by others is being directly attacked. The billions will not long stand for it. Dawkins and Dennett and those folks are certainly smart enough to know that, so it is the puzzle THEY represent that concerns me.
…I think they know they can't win, and really do want to shut it all down to prevent anyone from learning what they don't want to know. If all the magesteria overlap, there's no way out. These people are a bigger danger to science than any Pope who ever lived. You'd believe in the end that it was religion at fault, but you'd be wrong. That's why they're getting away with it.
Comment by Joy — May 11, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hi Vivid,
You wrote…
I don't have a problem with no knowing everything. Heck, I'm of the assumption you can't know the position and momentum of any object in the here and now much less historicaly (Heisenberg). And, don't even ask me about Schrödinger's poor cat.
The point is, as Joy said, "The metaphysical line in the sand is clear and straight" and since we have access to some empirical data about Alexander the Great, he is firmly on the physical side of the line along with all other historical events up to and almost including the origin of the universe, IMO.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 11, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
May 11th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
TP,
IMO the EA's would fight your tenative proposal tooth and nail. I dont think that would be true by the religious. Also the part regarding logic needs to be refined since logic can tell us what cannot be true but not what is true.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 11, 2007 @ 11:04 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hi Joy,
You wrote…
This is where you an I disagree on tactics. I want to loudly shout "Hey, everyone look at this. We need to talk about it and we need to talk about it now!"
I will admit that I am unsure that is the correct thing to do. I am more confident it is the ethical thing to do. People may not like hearing the truth, but a lie by omission is still a lie. And letting people believe in a NOMA lie for the "right" reasons is an end-justifies-the-means rationalization.
Yes, I know it is rather provocative of me to say it, but even this is tied to my weird code of ethics.
This sounds like a little hedging in the OMA/NOMA question. Please note, I am struggling with it myself.
I have resigned myself to a universe that is not predictable. The details as to why it is unpredictable don't matter. It looks like you doubt the predictability of the universe too. I am not sure why that means we have to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and retreat back to an unconstrained NOMA (all beliefs are valid). The key to the last statement is "have to" verses "want to". I understand the desire, but are we just running scared because it is difficult issue (albeit extremely difficult)?
I hope you are right.
So I even if I am paranoid, I have some justification.
I really do think it has a lot to do with a strong sense of ethics. For Atheist's, like Dawkins (and me), it is difficult justifying doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. That is what we see religious moralists doing. Without a moral compass, we loudly proclaim the logically consistent truth. Unless you can counter the logic, the truth is the truth and we will push it regardless of the consequences.
Finding "fault" is moralizing. The question is, were we consistent and did we speak the logically consistent truth?
Which gets us back to the OMA model. Will the religious side make a logically defendable proposal? If not, it will get ugly. Possibly very ugly.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 12:00 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hi Vivid,
You wrote…
I hope you are right about the religious not fighting it. Here is my OMA model.
Can you point to a similar model by an ID Proponent?
Provoking Thought
P.S. I didn't understand your "logic" question. If you want to restate it, I will try to respond.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 12:08 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:17 am
TP
Playing a game of chance that involves cards. M simpler explanation is in the moderators que LOL
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 12, 2007 @ 12:17 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Hi Vivid,
You wrote…
I am sorry for being dense on this one. I do not know what you are talking about.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 12:26 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:28 am
I dont have time at the moment to read your lnk as I am otherwise occupied.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 12, 2007 @ 12:28 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:59 am
I'd like to include this post as part of this thread, as I think it gets to the central problem posed by the OMA/NOMA distinction, and by ID itself. This problem, in my view, is this one: whether or not science can find the truth about minds.
There is ubiquitous disagreement about it, with some atheists and religious types saying yes, and some atheists and religious types saying no. A good example of an atheist in the 'no' camp is Colin McGinn. I think a religious believer who says yes is Peter van Inwagen, though I'm not sure if it's the case that he believes science can fully explain the mind, since he also argues strongly for some small amount of free will. He does, however, believe, that the mind is a material entity. So his is an interesting position, as is McGinn's.
Anyhow, here's an excerpt from my post for the click-averse:
Comment by stunney — May 12, 2007 @ 12:59 am
May 12th, 2007 at 4:26 am
stunney wrote:
stunney,
There are multiple truths about minds, not just one, and Colin McGinn doesn't doubt science's ability to uncover many of them. It is the "Hard Problem" of consciousness, to use David Chalmers' phrase, that McGinn thinks is insoluble.
I'm not sure it's just a small amount of free will that he argues for; after all, his book The Problem of Evil is largely a free-will defense.
Most materialists (including me) would not see that as a dilemma. To us, the following two statements are compatible:
1) The Empire State Building is the result of many, many particles mindlessly following the laws of physics.
2) Intelligent agents designed and built the Empire State Building.
To a materialist, a collection of mindless particles can, in the aggregate, be intelligent. This is not so mysterious as some believe. Many systems have properties that their individual components do not share. My car, as an assembled system, can carry me twenty miles to work, but we are not surprised that none of the parts are capable of doing so on their own. My pocket calculator can do square roots, even though a single transistor by itself cannot.
The key difference is that the cell's predecessors form a long chain, shaped over millions of years by Darwinian processes. If life did not reproduce and vary, and if it were not subject to selection, then I would strongly suspect it had been designed. Had I lived before Darwin, I am almost certain I would have been a believer.
I think that depends on your definition of 'observable'. I suspect most scientists would say we observe minds the same way we observe protons: by their effects.
Regarding predictability: Computers, viewed at a high level, are not predictable either. Your computer can surprise you when it crashes. Yet this high-level unpredictability does not mean that there is not a lower-level model of the computer that does accurately predict crashes. The problem is that the lower-level model is more complicated and unwieldy; even engineers will stick to the higher-level model until a bug arises, forcing us to use a lower-level representation. Thus there is no reason to regard the unpredictability of minds, viewed at a high level, as an indication that they are not materially based.
The effects of minds are observable. If you observe these effects, and if they cannot be otherwise produced, then haven't you detected a mind?
This, after all, is what ID is trying to do. My disagreement with IDers does not involve the logic of the statement above. Our quarrel is over whether certain things (flagella, for example) meet the criterion of 'cannot be produced other than by intelligence'.
Comment by keiths — May 12, 2007 @ 4:26 am
May 12th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Hi TP,
You write:
What is the truth?
Comment by MikeGene — May 12, 2007 @ 7:44 am
May 12th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Hi Mike,
You asked…
The truth is I don't have the patience to "gently guide"
Seriously, on one hand no one knows the truth and the wise man knows this (ala Oracle of Delphi). On the other hand everyone knows "the truth" but these truths are all different and protected by NOMA walls. However, on the gripping hand, we all are striving for a single, OMA truth that represents a correct World View.
At the risk of being overly provocative, let's talk about the "New Atheists" that are supposed to have been spawned out of fear for Islamic Fundamentalism and the attack on 911.
I don't know if I'm a representative sample of this new species, but I can tell you what my immediate reaction was the morning of September 11th, 2001. "No one should be surprised by this, but they will be." and "Bush will use this as an excuse to try to start World War 3."
I watched in horrid fascination as the majority of Americans put on hold any critical thinking and didn't ask the obvious questions. You know, like how are you going to deal with the "truth" that the Sunnah and Shi'a are going to try to kill each other at the first opportunity and the Kurds are going to demand independence? Come on people, THINK! Instead, they just shook their heads and said I didn't understand and, besides, I have no right to try and force my "truth" on them. While you may wish to dismiss this example (Joy said something about people would think Bush was moral even if he ate babies), I have many more.
In a lot of ways I think provocative debate is healthy. We should question each other. We need to encourage heated verbal exchanges and have our own beliefs challenged.
I suggest we need to do this, because the alternative is much worse. This isn't about who is right and who is wrong, it is about trying to face "truths" we can never be certain of.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 10:03 am
May 12th, 2007 at 10:35 am
TP:
Um… last I checked, those who care about the issues *are* talking about it. Endlessly, in circles, spirals and braids. But neither you nor I can make anyone care about these issues if they don't want to know. That's an exercise in wasted time.
Echoing Mike, what is this 'truth' you believe everyone must care about? That science harbors lots of deliberately offensive EAs? That wannabe mind-tyrants come in lab coats as often as expensive suits? There will always be non-overlapping magesteria, and they're centered firmly in people's minds. No amount of proclaiming not so from rooftops or mountaintops will change that, so there's no point wasting one's life attempting to defy reality.
I don't think you're catching the important gist of the statement. If science is unable to develop a consistent model of physical reality without appeal to extra dimensions of space and/or different aspects of time, it will have surrendered its power to the vast NOMA that comes from realities we cannot quantify, observe or measure.
God/gods could be operative or even fully corporeal in any or all dimensions we can't perceive or touch. And religious believers/spiritually inclined people will have full warrant to make claims about unseen and unknown dimensions science now claims are really there.
IOW, evangelical god-haters cannot make gods go away by appealing to the Great Unknown and Unknowable. They just open a door to legitimizing the faiths they hate so much. It may turn out that science has no choice, in which case it had better learn to live peaceably with people of faith. This is the danger of asserting that all the magesteria overlap.
NOMA doesn't mean "all beliefs are valid," TP. That's postmodernism. NOMA means that if there are places science can't go with its instruments, it has no business making any sort of pronouncements on the validity of metaphysical belief systems. Even if not all of them can be true. NOMA is an acceptance of *that* truth, a hefty nod to individual freedom of will and a modicum of respect for the human condition.
Besides, I don't think the universe is unpredictable at all. It's very highly predictable if we know something about the time-like variables. Sure, anything that can happen probably will happen, and anomalies abound. But manifestation is mostly habit. Habit is reliably predictable - the odds aren't really 50-50, they're weighted.
Again, what is this 'truth' and how do you know it's true?
As someone who was inclined to reject the idea of telic design in nature simply because religious believers are among its proponents, this is a weird demand. ID *is* a logically defensible proposal. We think it deserves examination and exploration sans the arbitrary limiting assumptions of metaphysical materialism that now corrupt science so broadly.
It's science that needs to come up with a logically defensible position, and extra dimensions won't help. Logically speaking, appeals to the Unknowable are exactly the same as appeals to God. Just as appeals to the Laws of Nature are no different from appeals to the Laws of God.
That's a truth it wouldn't hurt atheists to accept. Are they willing to do so? And if not, don't blame others for any ugliness that arises.
Comment by Joy — May 12, 2007 @ 10:35 am
May 12th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Hi Stunney,
You wrote…
Please excuse my bluntness, but I have tried looking at things from your point of view. But I have problems getting past the way you appear to be defining your way to a conclusion you wish to make. I have made several attempts to present counter examples for you to use to compare and contrast and explain how they are different from what you are talking about. For example, from earlier in this thread…
"The quantum consciousness model"¦could in principle help lead the way to a new theory of physics that could repair a serious hole (to some) in quantum mechanics. Penrose believes such a theory will come to light sooner or later, whether or not he is right about consciousness "“- but it could happen sooner if the model proves correct..
What a great practical joke nature will have played on us if all the thinking that has gone into uncovering the ultimate laws of the universe turns out to reveal that one of the biggest clues was woven all along into the very fabric of thought itself." link
Please explain how this is and is not relevent to what you are saying. Is there a problem because it uses the word "consciousness" instead of "mind". Well, here is another presentation that directly addresses "mind" and its relationship to your "MatterDidIt" complaint…
"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.
All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.
Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.
Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.
Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."
link
Again, please explain how this is and is not relevent to what you are saying.
BTW, I like that you encourge people to try to poke holes in your logic but I suggest our exchanges could use a little more Quid Pro Quo. I noticed you didn't address my previous comment that included…
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 10:42 am
May 12th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Thought Provoker, addressing stunney:
Now that was funny!
Comment by keiths — May 12, 2007 @ 11:00 am
May 12th, 2007 at 11:46 am
why must we be concerned with individual rights?
what about those of us who dont care for ensuring a future for the many or the few? why should we respect "freedom" or "individual liberties"
Preserve NOMA to keep out the tyrany of forcing people to "all believe the same thing" Lets pretend NOMA is something of an art object. it gets to nothing accuratly…it merely serves whatever purpose we have at that moment, and the second someone tries to force an oma, within a generation, the noma-sided people start breaking the rules, and redescribing to evade the oma. a good example of this is pointed out by bloom when he discusses the african american communities use of noma and oma (perhaps we can say cultural noma/oma in that case).
why?
i find this point interesting. they have to posit y to keep sense of their x. are they getting to a more accurate description of anything? i would say no, they are always keeping something unknown, out there that we must find, so that we may uphold are current world view of "its oh so good to ask questions". as ruse points out: if science found the end, the great theory, or whatever, there would be some sort of celebration: this is the goal of science, but when religion posits that it has found the end, the explination for it all, they are made fun of. science always has to wow us, while keeping something just so unexplainable.
are we all? what do you mean by correct? why would we want the "correct" world view (as dawkins wonderfully says, homosexuality, if it turns out to be merely a cultural thing, is ok because they know the evolutionary path from which they diverge. and in response to him, id say im a faith based nut, and i know the evolutionary path i diverge from)? how would we know we finally had the correct world view? from taking a survey of all the people to see what they all said?
again, here we see noma/oma acting as a piece of art, a piece of art being used in reponse to dealing with the new experiences our generations are forced to deal with, and also in reponse to making sense of these new experiences in light of our previous dogma (ie. how can we eat this strange event to fit what we used to know so that its still what we know).
why?….
what is the alternative? i have an idea what you might say…and to you its much worse. can you explain the last little bit about facing truths we can never be certain of (sorry my heads a bit cloudy, and i just cant get it).
why?
sorry to ask all the why's like an annoying little kid, but i simply dont get where you guys pull some of this out as obvious, and you all agree with it, but i really just dont find myself knowing if i agree with it, nor why i do agree with it when i do. perhaps i just feel a bit "special" due to mental illness (i prefer touched in the head, if you will please), and feel like in finding oma, we may all just forget about certain nuts that we cant crack (ie mental illness that posit different, yes unpractically different too, world views).
can we all at least agree on one oma: there is significant enough evidence to show that cats are in fact better than people. such an description of reality is the tell-all-end-all of explinations. can we get beyond this statement to what is behind cats being better than people? sure, because i said so. agreed?
Comment by dantedanti — May 12, 2007 @ 11:46 am
May 12th, 2007 at 11:51 am
in thinking: perhaps the question is not, is there oma? perhaps there is some oma…i think the question, in response to the comment on the new athiests and sept 11, is should we, if we can, continue to use noma as the political tool we have always been using it as? or should we now use oma? in light of our new experiences (culturally determined experiences such as sept 11th) we will shift and change the noma/oma scale and where things fall on it, not in regards to reality, but in regards to making sense of these new experiences.
Comment by dantedanti — May 12, 2007 @ 11:51 am
May 12th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Hi Joy,
Thank you very much for responding. While I am sure others might think I am just being polite (hard to imagine why) when I say it , I really mean it. You brought up some very good points starting with…
I am assuming this is not a concession to things I have said in earlier posts. This is the exact "ah ha" I developed when struggling with Maxwell's equations during my engineering training. I kept looking for an engineering explanation for why electromagnetic waves exist at all. The inescapable conclusion was "because they can". The loaded dice view occurred later when studying quantum mechanic explanations for tunneling diodes (note: for a quick chuckle, imagine a room for a glorified greasemonkeys trying to wrap there minds around QM).
I don't mind. I suspect I enjoy it. I have the added benefit of believing there is an ethical duty to help people question their own logically inconsistent beliefs when they are trying to spread these beliefs to others.
I think we can all stand down when PR firms quit trying to rally the masses to mindlessly coalesce in support of a particular cause or causes because it is no longer an effective tactic. I am perfectly happy to back off when someone disagrees with me but doesn't try to convince me or others of what is right or wrong. I submit my correspondence with Doug as an example.
I will even back off when it becomes obvious a group of people don't want to be questioned. The reason I don't go trolling in other blogs isn't from a lack a desire, it is from a lack of ethical justification. Telic Thoughts' About Us statement provided me the ticket I needed to get past my ethical concerns. I am not a perfect ethical machine be any means. All I can do is try my best.
I see DanteDanti has responded so I will wrap this up quickly.
I wrote…
Which gets us back to the OMA model. Will the religious side make a logically defendable proposal?
You responded with…
Then defend it instead of keeping it hidden in gallons and gallons of dirty bath water. I am begging you to defend it. I am pleading for you to defend it. I have started my own ID "outline" so you can show me how "…ID *is* a logically defensible proposal."
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 11:59 am
May 12th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
dantedanti:
Freedoms, liberties, etc. of which I spoke, even though you failed to specify my words from TP's words in your citations. We *must* be concerned with individual rights because a majority of civilized humanity has agreed that this is the best way to avoid serious conflicts and a general increase in human suffering. Sure, it's lofty and naively idealistic, and even here in the US where such things have been enshrined in the governing charter for more than 240 years we fall short daily of those ideals.
It's worth the good ol' college try, which is why the UN includes a charter on human rights in its own governance. Delineated goals are only impossible if we admit that there is no teleology in nature (which includes ourselves), and no order to which we might aspire. If that is true, we're wasting a whole lot of time, effort and money on utter foolishness. Health care for all in the world's richest nation would be a better investment, though it would entail an even greater respect for others than mere tolerance demands.
You know, all that "Do Unto Others" stuff that's never going to get any easier to understand, or harder to practice.
If you don't care, you can spend your time on planet earth totally unconcerned about yourself or your fellow humans or anyone's future. Nobody really cares what you decide to do so long as it doesn't hurt others. If you hurt others, we have every reason to take your freedom away from you and make you live your life in an 8 by 10 concrete cell with locked bars. The better to protect ourselves from you. But you can still be as mean as you like. Big Bubba in the bottom bunk probably won't mind.
Or maybe we'll get even more 'civilized' someday and just turn you loose on an island or planetoid somewhere to practice your freedom on the other sociopathic criminals that live there. Who knows?
Do you honestly believe it is possible to control the individual and collective minds of humanity by force? If so, why would you wish to do so? The psychology of such desires is fairly elementary - a person is so insecure about what s/he believes that s/he demands everyone believe the same thing so it will seem more true than it otherwise does. What a crock!
Beyond that, why does what other people believe so consume some people with hatred or dread? Again, because they are insecure in their own beliefs.
If I don't care what you believe so long as it's harmless to me and mine, you could offer me the same apathy. I am not so insecure about what I believe. Thus I don't feel a need to care what you believe.
THAT is NOMA - my mind is my own, you can't have it. Conversely, your mind belongs to you and I don't want it. Since we have no means of controlling other people's minds, this is the best approach to minds. IMO.
Comment by Joy — May 12, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Comment by stunney — May 12, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
TP wrote:
It is relevant. Did I say it wasn't relevant? No.
What I said was the central problem, in my view, is this one: whether or not science can find the truth about minds, and that there is ubiquitous disagreement about it—disagreement that cuts across the theist/atheist divide.
I've noticed that you haven't addressed lots of comments I've made. So, so much for quid pro quo.
But you may have noticed that there's only so much time in the day, regardless of whether one relies on Jupiter's moons or the wavefunction of all bottles of Smirnov vodka and Uncle Eddie's first drink of the day to tell the time. And I don't always find what you have to say all that interesting.
TP, you're not getting the fact that there is widespread disagreement about how relevant empirical testing even is to understanding the most salient properties of mind. For just one example (and there are many more), read this post, particularly the text in the quote box. So moving the line doesn't help very much, because the results of empirical testing with respect to minds may and do admit of a variety of interpretations.
Data always have to be interpreted. Which is one reason TT exists. If the biological data came with their infallibly correct interpretation stamped on them already, things might be easier. But even then somebody would probably say the language used in giving the interpretation was actually a code, and that the really correct interpretation was something else.
It may be worth your while reading Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, by Wilfrid Sellars:
Moving on….
No, they wouldn't be clearly identifiable, for the reason I just gave, and Sellars gave decades ago.
Comment by stunney — May 12, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Not that I am aware of although I think Salvador
talks about retrocausality alot.
Perhaps asking a question would be more helpfull. Give me an example of something that is logical yet cant be known logically. I am thinking along the lines of tooth faries. Does logic rule out the existence of tooth faries or leprechauns?
I sort of prefer your term "logically consistent" in your OMA post.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — May 12, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Hi Dantedanti,
You are just being a troublemaker.
(For the listening audience, I believe Dantedanti will view this last statement as the compliment I intended it to be).
Let me skip to where you are addressing my statements. I am confident Joy is quote capable of defender her own.
I wrote…
We all are striving for a single, OMA truth that represents a correct World View.
You responded…
I rewrote my single sentence five times and couldn't come up with the right words. Therefore, I just put it out there fully expecting to have to explain myself. I am not surprised you picked up on this obvious weak spot.
A "fact" I presented in an earlier thread was that there is only one thinking being I know exists (me) . And this sole person has had to struggle with two equal and opposite "realities". One, that this person doesn't really know anything and two, this person must know something in order to function.
This person has dealt with this inconsistency by building a working thought model to deal with moment-to-moment activities without constantly worrying about whether feet actually exist much less the illusion of solid ground being walked upon.
Well, moment-to-moment turns into day-to-day (the Sun will rise tomorrow) which turns into year-to-year (the season's change) which turns into person-to-person (others are like me). The World View is constantly being updated as new information arrives. At least for this particular person.
This person assumes others are constantly updating their World View too. One of the interesting aspects of the person-to-person World View as that it is mostly built on mutually agreeing to a common World View. Often when the World Views clash, it causes problems. So we try to build a World View of World Views and, before you know it, it's turtles all the way down until we are arguing about it on a blog named Telic Thoughts.
Excuse me for ending this comment here, but your troublemaking "why" questions are causing me to ramble and I want to keep the rambling to manageable chunks. I will address your other "why" questions in other comments.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Yikes. I've just noticed that in my earlier post that began:
"I'd like to include this post as part of this thread, as I think it gets to the central problem posed by the OMA/NOMA distinction, and by ID itself. This problem, in my view, is this one: whether or not science can find the truth about minds."
I actually linked to the wrong post. The post I intended to link to was actually this one. Sorry for any confusion caused.
But yes, see this post for how it may be possible for buildings to replicate with variation.
Van Inwagen's view is that there is a small amount of free will in this sense: the vast majority of human behavior is not the result of its use. But when it is used, for good or ill, even much later occurring good or bad behavior will often be the result of a few prior uses, not of a current use, of free will.
Comment by stunney — May 12, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Hi Dantedanti,
Didn't I indicate that I thought a philosophical argument with you was going to be challenging?
I skimmed Joy's response to you. It looks like she did a pretty good job holding her own against your troublemaking ways.
But back to the task at hand…
I wrote…
We should question each other. We need to encourage heated verbal exchanges and have our own beliefs challenged.
You rhetorically asked…
Because I has already stated…
I suggest we need to do this, because the alternative is much worse. This isn't about who is right and who is wrong, it is about trying to face "truths" we can never be certain of.
You responded with…
The engineer has a slight advantage over the philosopher when it comes to practical realities. Engineers intentionally put relief values in vessels containing exothermic processes. Can an engineer say with absolute certainty that the mess caused by a blown relief valve was better than the alternative? No (the vessel might have held), but the engineer can still be confident that it was an appropriate practical thing to do.
The philosopher has an advantage over the engineer in dealing with things like "This statement is incorrect." My statement that we should be "…trying to face "truths" we can never be certain of." Was this engineer's bumbling attempt to find logical consistency in something that is illogical.
"Touched in the head" or not. I feel it does us all good to question even the basic assumptions. I am very nervous if I walk out of an engineering meeting where everyone agreed with on an answer. Experience tells me we missed something but weren't astute enough to see it.
Dantedanti, you aren't asking leading questions. You aren't pretending ignorance. I think you are forcing us to face things that need facing. Of course I can't know any of this for certain. But I would like to think I am pretty good at figuring out what's what.
LOL
I like it.
Personally, I think humans are a biological mistake. The strongest evidence against the logic of either Darwinism or Intelligent Design, it is the existence of humans. Yes, cats are much more logically consistent and are, therefore, "better" than humans.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 12, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Thought Provoker wrote:
Speak for yourself, TP, speak for yourself.:lol:
Comment by stunney — May 12, 2007 @ 2:21 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
forgive me joy for not identifying the quotes i was pulling, i was just reading and copying and pasting and there was so much: as usually im going to blame my meds….im having a rather "hard day" of it too, which means i may make little or no sense, but take what i say as it is, maybe something, maybe nothing. most of my "whys" were said because of my mental illness, and my experience with people with other mental illnesses. it seems that these people, and myself often have very differeng goals or ways of going about doing things, and that we arent always figured into the mix, but usually disregarded. this has upset me often because if we are to get to the oma, then, as postmodernism told us a bit, mental illness is a good bit of something to study, as his the tools we label religion or science. so…..again i must apologize for not indicating quotes by author (which interestingly enough is a way of collasping all of you into the same "person", ie my computer screen):
yes the majority of humanity has agreed to this, which is partly why civilization is just that, civilization. however, not everyone agrees to this (remember how annoying dissent has be for oma theories in the past), nor is everyone interested in avoiding serious conflict, physical or otherwise. human suffering? i have clinical depression, i live constantly with suffering, there is no reason that i see to decrease it. it has its pros and its cons. we MUST be concerned? what you mean is….
here you outline that well if someone disagrees, or has different goals, youll lock them up (again think of the oma/noma here). youve shown here that we MUST, has nothing to do with how every person really is or ought to be, but merely how you are and what youre goals are: respecting people and decreasing their suffering. these are not my goals. though i will agree, you have the power to lock me up.
i believe the idea of indivdual is a social construction that is created by instituions. this construction is not a bad thing, it merely means we, as individuals, were created by some sort of force, either verbal or physical. force and violence is all we as human beings know. we each account for this force and violence in varying ways: usually with the tools provided for by the very instution that created us. i hope im not coming off toooo postmodern, because thats not my intention at all, i deplore postmodernism. we are each trying to account for that which created us: an insitution,either of class, religion, or in general, of "humanity".
i think this description of other peoples movtivations and goals thereof is far far too simplistic and thus very inaccurate. plus, simply because you dont harm me, why should i offer you the same? to make civilization work? again, im not interested in civilization working, im interested in my particular community that i have been created by to continue functioning.
actually tp, i am prone to these sorts of problems, and obsessive-compusivly get them in my head, till i get to go to the hospital, where they have to pump me full of meds because im banging my head against the wall again. again, if we are to get at oma, are we to discount the views and tools of the mental ill?
and i suppose i do take the trouble maker comment as something of a compliment, though it is something i do not intend to be, and am often troubled that i upset people so much.
you guys didnt say if cats are better than people.
for the sake of oma, it seems many of us have been possing some different things as examples of interest, why dont we take some of those "objects" (here i think again of something like an art object), and see if we can approach them from a religious, then from a scientific view, and why each one gets what it gets, and what that means (i hope what i just said makes some sort of sense to someone). i think it would be best to study several objects (some already proposed indirectly):
conciousness
mental illness
the big bang
reading the newspaper
christ or mohammad
logic
language
the cat sleeping next to me
feel free to use either of these or none of these, or to disregard my suggestion at all.
Comment by dantedanti — May 12, 2007 @ 2:28 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
tp:
what about those of us who arent interested in practical goals (as many of my statements may imply i guess)? and what do we mean by practical? how do you (perhaps) find that practical goals and realities are, lets say, more interesting than nonpractical, any less accurate also lets throw in.
can you explain what you mean here, because i dont understand the statement.
also folks, i dont mean to make "the mentally ill"….well i dont know…our brain states determine something of which noma we will choose to belong to and if we will in fact choose it to be a noma one. as ive said before harris says, well depressed people are being rational, but by his (though sometimes vague) definition of rational, we can say that he is not being rational either, as he is prompted by "undepressed" feelings. perhaps i could say mental illness lead me to religion (take that one dawkins), and that i find this rationally motivated. as i indicated above, i still remain a staunch skeptic of everything, even to the point of if i have hands at any particular moment.
sorry, rambeling again.
Comment by dantedanti — May 12, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
May 12th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
TP, I may have missed any reply you intended to give to these provoking thoughts of mine, short of positing a multiverse, which apparently you don't wish to do: