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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 16, 2016 - 07:57pm PT
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^^^ Roger that
How you interpret it is a matter of faith
And this is where JL goes down a rabbit hole. He has trouble acknowledging this simple fact. We try.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Oct 16, 2016 - 08:04pm PT
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Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.
...seems more than just the end!
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 17, 2016 - 09:02am PT
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MH2: Reality is indescribable? Could you please give an example?
Oh, come on, . . . think about it. (But Largo did that for you—and quite well I would say.)
IT presents a never-ending paradox, a conundrum, a dilemma. It doesn’t matter what you call IT.
IF there is just one reality, then there can be no “example.” There is only ITSELF. IF there is more than one reality, then one might be able to say anything truthfully and provide infinite examples.
Attempting to be logical about IT just gets a person tied up in knots of one's own making.
DMT: Its [sic] bullsh#t. The mind is every bit part of the same physical reality as any other thing. Not above, not below, not outside, not inside, not some mythical white paper on a would-be project; the same.
But not only the same thing.
It is all bullsh#t, it’s all real, and it’s all the same thing.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oct 17, 2016 - 09:53am PT
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Maybe we could view the brain as an information processor...
I like that definition although I would say it belongs only to the discursive left brain....
The business of our entire nervous system is information processing and control.
What's plain as day is the degree to which ignorance rules in the absence of concurrent education in electrical, neuro and information science where it all comes together... flip flops to memory to telemetry to action potentials to bandwidth to systems to wiring.
Over the foreseeable future, as a collective this understanding is outside our grasp. Just like in other areas: 4 minute mile, 5.11 climbing. Etc etc etc.
We as a collective can't even get our act together regarding... evolution. The problems ain't just in politics. They also manifest in education and belief. Welcome to IQ 100.
What's more, there's way more interest obviously to post (woo) then to do the hard work of actually educating oneself in above areas.
What is a flip flop? What is a high-q bandwidth filter? What is the cerebellum? What is a religious soul's worth without any ability to remember, without gender, without drive, without any ability of recognition.
Who cares? After age 50?
Collectively, we can not even get our act together regarding... evolution. Though it's now the 21st century, not the 19th. Welcome to IQ 100.
We are doing our best though. Kudos for this.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 17, 2016 - 10:00am PT
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IF there is just one reality, then there can be no “example.”
If you think about it you may realize that I was asking for an example of how reality is not describable, not an example of reality itself, in it's totality.
And you did describe reality, so it isn't indescribable. If it were, you could say nothing about it.
And the humor is there. You advise thinking but get tied up in logical knots.
From a mock test for freshmen at MIT:
Describe reality and give three examples.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Oct 17, 2016 - 10:47am PT
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Who cares? After age 50?
Don't give up so early in life. Keep flip-flopping!
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 17, 2016 - 04:07pm PT
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Tough to respond on my phone.
If you believe that saying what something isn't, and pointing to contradictions constitutes a description, there is little one can say in response.
I'm trying to simply point. That's what's behind the notion of a presentation rather than description. What I'm trying to say is that any presentation is incomplete, inaccurate--and not that alone. If anything will stand as a description for you, then what description do you think or believe that you have? What would you then see?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 17, 2016 - 04:25pm PT
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Describe reality and give three examples
Uh, well ReMax would be one for sure. I'll have to think of two more.
(Oh, reality!)
No MIT for me.
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Oct 17, 2016 - 04:36pm PT
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1) Birth
2) Life
3) Death
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 17, 2016 - 07:08pm PT
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If anything will stand as a description for you, then what description do you think or believe that you have? What would you then see?
A description that will stand for me: warm cornbread with butter tastes good.
What do I see? A yellowish crumbly bread-like rectangular prism on a plate.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 17, 2016 - 10:06pm PT
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^^^ Your description is splendid - I can see it so clearly!
How can this be if all is in indescribable flux?
Puzzled
;>\
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Oct 18, 2016 - 06:23am PT
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http://steve-patterson.com/quantum-physics-abuse-reason/
They often add – especially the more spiritually-inclined ones – “Reality itself is mind-dependent. We can empirically demonstrate that the state of the universe depends on our observation of it. And, if the universe goes unobserved, then it remains in an indeterminate state.”
Before diving into the explanation of this argument, I’ll give you my evaluation up front: I believe these ideas are catastrophically flawed. Interpreting quantum physics in this particular way is nothing short of an abuse of Reason – an embarrassment to critical thinking. I don’t say that glibly. It’s akin to writing the equation “2 + 2 = 5” and thinking that you’ve demonstrated mathematics is flawed, and when somebody challenges your conclusion, you simply point back to your formula. You show an empirical “test” with your fingers – you add two fingers to two fingers, but mistakenly end up extending all five fingers, then walk around showing your open hand to people as proof of the paradoxical nature of mathematics.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 18, 2016 - 07:46am PT
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Reality itself is mind-dependent
No it isn't.
It is entirely dependent on the living entity itself, the soul.
Without the living entity itself the senses would never exist, including the mind, nor would the material body exist, nor would there be any consciousness at all in matter ......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 18, 2016 - 08:03am PT
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Mike,
I did not question other words you lately used to describe reality, or the nature of reality, to be exact:
the nature of reality is that it can show up as anything. It is unbounded, indescribable, undefinable, unresolvable, and, well . . . empty of what we'd call real substance.
It is odd how you defend the use of the word 'indescribable' while at the same time calling whatever it is that you are talking about unbounded, undefinable, unresolvable, and empty of what we'd call real substance. You could simply admit that reality is at least a tiny bit describable. Is that so hard to do?
I admit that my objection to calling reality indescribable is pedantry.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 18, 2016 - 08:27am PT
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The "real substance" has to defined first .......
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 18, 2016 - 11:33am PT
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Cintune:
Who is Patterson? Is he some kind of authority? I can’t seem to find anything about him. (He is NOT the former athletic director of the University of Texas Longhorns, nor the former president and general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers, right? Not that Patterson?)
I don’t think Patterson understands what’s been presented by those minds he derisively rejects. I think he could be making far too much of reason. I’d say there is more available to understanding than can be exposed by reason.
I’d say we live in a world today that needs (requires?) that people see reality in more than just one way. You can call it postmodernism, multiculturalism, multi-pluralism, integration, or use other similar labels. The closer one looks and reads around, it would seem that one is more compelled to recognize a kind of aperspectival view that is simultaneously backward, forward, and present along every dimension that can be considered. And one still cannot say what anything is finally.
I’d say Wittman was right. We are *all* large and multitudes culturally, psychologically, physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and what have you. This is why I continue to suggest (as I do with MH2 and others) that one cannot describe anything completely, finally, accurately. Not only can one not do so, but one *shouldn’t.*
MH2: You could simply admit that reality is at least a tiny bit describable.
Sure.
It’s my experience that every time I think I really know something, I am wrong. Every time I read or hear of someone claiming this or that, I come to see that they are wrong, too—inasmuch as they do not pin the thing they are claiming down finally. We live awash in currents of interpretations.
What’s workable for me is to make an (empty?) distinction between what things in reality are and how IT seems to present in any form whatsoever. I may be using this notion of “present” in a strange way to you. (That's "preee-sent" not the term referring to "now.") I got the term from hanging out with some M.D.s. When they talk about examining patients and zeroing in on their illnesses, they use the term “present” to indicate symptoms linked to root causes. A patient comes in with spots, or anxiety, or a fever, or with swollen ankles, and as the doctor runs through various investigatory protocols, he talks about how an issue “presents” itself. (It's an expressive term that I’m favoring these days.)
Look, I’ve been looking for some time now, reading volumes, listening and talking to so-called masters, doing that “sitting” thing for a few decades, performing various practices a few hundred thousand times, and I must admit I know nothing (very very little) for it. I can’t say what reality (or even my consciousness) is. All I can do (humorously) is to talk about their apparent presentations. What I've noted is that both (my consciousness and reality) seem to be remarkably correlated . . . but WTF do I know? :-)
Am I describing ok to you now?
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Oct 18, 2016 - 12:28pm PT
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The substance of the Patterson article is all I'm interested in. I neither know nor care who he "is." Funny question, that, particularly from you, when you think about it.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 18, 2016 - 02:12pm PT
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Cintune:
I was wondering where he was coming from, for I did not read anything about his experiences (data of some sort) that he was basing his arguments on. They seemed to be based only on reason / logic.
I can suppose that you can say that his reason is the basis for his experience, but I would hope for more direct observation and apprehension.
Don't take this poorly, but anyone can come up with arguments and theories. I'd say that half of the readers here would prefer some kind of data, even if it is one's own direct observations. Theories are cheap by the dozen.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 18, 2016 - 03:36pm PT
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MikeL,
I think you are too concerned with wrong versus right, without a having full understanding of the difference.
When it comes to describing reality, or apprehending reality, I believe that you misread, or maybe just mis-state, both the task and your own ability to do it.
None of us alone can say much about reality. It is far too big and complicated for a human mind. Together, though, we have made a bit of progress.
Would you say that pi or the square root of 2 are indescribable because we can't write down their infinite decimal expansions?
What is your notion about a description of reality, or as you have called it, IT?
Are you saying that the "discursive mind" with its words could not describe everything in the universe? Would that include each and every fundamental particle?
Such a description could only be final and complete, to borrow your perspective, at the end of time and space. Why not just see what we can do here and now?
How about other descriptions that only capture essential elements?
To describe the game of chess, do we need to write down every possible game? How about if we only write the rules of the game?
How about if we describe the rules of reality-as-we-are-able-to-know-it?
Warning: math will be necessary.
edit:
We are all influenced by reality, often in ways we not recognize, and we are always not quite exactly right. Might as well admit it.
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