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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Apr 10, 2017 - 01:43pm PT
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Does anyone (Largo) have a reference to the Humanum Gigantus in the photos ? I've looked at a lot of human paleontology and never heard of them before unless you're talking about individuals who have a hormonal growth problem which is why we see them on several continents.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2017 - 02:48pm PT
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Hope to look at those links, Ed. I think Frank did a pretty good job of explaining away those variables in his videos. I like watching him. Has a certain ease about his presentation.
And Fruity, when you say, "Just substitute awareness, content and consciousness for God, resurrection and Christianity and voila!"
Voila ... what?
I can look at, say, my car, and substitute chassis, engine, and drive shaft for God, resurrection and Christianity, but I doubt I would get much traction in the religious word for the lack of doctrines, beliefs and worship, which remain the cornerstones of religious life.
When Plank said that forms postulate consciousness, does that make the man (who was Jewish) a Christian? What does Jesus have to do with any of this? Unless I knew better I'd swear you were back to drinking the bong water again...
It would seem that you are still bowing at the alter of some fixed, objective reality "out there," but verily, the folks from many camps are saying you're worshiping a sand castle.
However I bet we have a lot more in common in this regards then you let on. I was born a skeptic and when I hear things like the crazy talk (to me) coming out of the Strong AI camp I keep thinking about Barnum and Baley's line about suckers. And yet I've learned a lot from reading about it all.
That's what Chalmer's is so skilled at doing - he learns from all and takes all vantages seriously and isn't threatened by any of them. And while I might chide you for fun, dear Fruitus, you have provided a ton of great links, so there. And I'm a Sam Harris fan after all. Not on everything, but you have to respect someone who is that lucid and sincere.
And another thing, Ed. If you ever had the chance to do any professional level philosophical work, you'd quickly realize, A) the place is crawling with scientists, B), that's about the only place you can go to talk about like stuff like mind, which is endlessly fascinating if you have that kind of curiosity, and C), the philosophical method is really about intellectual and scholastic rigor, not about fobbing half-baked ideas around like so many French rolls. The common mistake many take about philosophy is that they would be better off sticking with equations - as though math giants like Whitehead, Boehm, and Kant needed only to "shut up and start calculating." That's what got most of them into philosophy. The adventure of ideas.
Of course there is bad philosophy just like there is bad science, or faux science. Most examples of either show a lack of logical and scholastic rigor, IMO.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 10, 2017 - 07:28pm PT
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the philosophical method is really about intellectual and scholastic rigor
Yes. I recommend against ever arguing with a professional philosopher.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 10, 2017 - 08:07pm PT
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the place is crawling with scientists
yes, but after a while, being a scientists seems like so much work, having to actually back up what you say (and think) with some actual "predictions" or actual "tests" that it seems so much easier to just talk about it, even if you have to provide some scholastic rigor... after all, in the end, what does it mean? We're still citing Aristotle... for his philosophy... no so much for his physics...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 10, 2017 - 08:53pm PT
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Ed, some day i wish I could take you to a seven day Renzai Zen retreat where there's no talking and you only get to sleep 6 hours a night (if that) hour after hour you have to keep dropping deeper into the process. It gives a person every reason to run for it and get back to whatever you are used to calling "work."
Rigor comes in many flavors.
And if you like a slippery slope, check out this one from Terry Rudolph, physicist at Imperial College, who apparently is the grandson of Erwin Schrodinger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGZDhQoR9E
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Apr 10, 2017 - 09:22pm PT
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MH2: . . . a professional philosopher.
And that would be a person who gets paid to philosophize? Or would that be a person who holds dear to the external values of the community? Professions usually stand for something (values) outside of individual aggrandizement. (You know, like doctors profess to the hippocratic oath?)
Ed: yes, but after a while, being a scientists seems like so much work, having to actually back up what you say (and think) with some actual "predictions" or actual "tests" that it seems so much easier to just talk about it, even if you have to provide some scholastic rigor...
In the areas I’ve studied, certain journals tend to be devoted to theory or to empirical research. Of course both kinds of research are supposed to dovetail at some point, but there is room and respect for pure theorists as well for those who gather empirical data and test hypotheses.
Occasionally someone notes that the same attitude would do well across disciplines also. I think it was Kaplan who said to economists: “Economics has its place, . . . just not the whole place, please.”
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 10, 2017 - 11:27pm PT
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IMO, the lab coats here have not read much philosophy.
I'd admit to reading just enough to retreat back to the lab with a big sigh of relief...
...but then I don't read for a profession.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 11, 2017 - 07:46am PT
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And that would be a person who gets paid to philosophize?
How about an academic who specializes in reasoning and logical argument? So, yes.
As far as individual aggrandizement, if you can achieve that in the adversarial world of academic philosophy, more power to you.
As far as the Hippocratic Oath, philosophers are not likely to cause physical harm to others.
I believe that their external values taken from the community would have more to do with a search for truth.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 11, 2017 - 07:59am PT
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being a scientists seems like so much work, having to actually back up what you say
"actual tests"
Yes exactly. You can't make up sh!t.
It's same with the spiritual science, all science.
It's all like medicine whether you believe or not when it's absolutely bonafide and true it will act ........
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 11, 2017 - 01:10pm PT
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Dingus, that "I am right" rap is pretty much the song of everyone who feels they have a privileged take on the subject for reasons relative to their group. "But we have this!" they rant (equations, predictions, direct experiences, logical arguments, cha cha cha).
Even among my science friends, the ones doing experimentation consider the people working on theory to be just screwing around, while the theorists feel the people doing experiments to be handy with tools, but lacking the bandwidth to creatively work up the data.
And in philosophy, logicians chide anyone even thinking about metaphysics as aimless dreamers, while the later tell the logicians that they "sharpen the knife, but never cut the loaf."
And on and on...
Most everyone roots for the home team. Where the illusions come in - IMO - is when one home team claims they have stand-alone status, that their findings exist separate and above all others because theirs is "objective," or is God-inspired, or (fill in the blank).
Even a monkey thinks it's beautiful. Ever seen one with a mirror...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 11, 2017 - 02:38pm PT
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That said I've noted self-described philosophers as being, um quite fond of their own arguments.
---
In my experience, that's pretty much how it goes with anyone braving a position. That, IMO, is what makes Chalmers so impressive: He's not so much defending a position but trying to answer a Hard Problem, and anyone who has relevant input is welcomed, including those trying to explain the hard problem away.
The trick, I think is to keep the conversation going and learning to have some fun in the process - sort of like wise people do with their lives. The aim of living is not so much to come up with philosophical slogans or predictions or equations or whatever, but to grope our way towards wisdom and fulfillment, so far as I can tell.
Those insisting that we come up with some answer that will settle the matter, once and for all, are IMO committing a kind suicide just to satisfy their discursive minds.
Though finding answers along the way is also part of the bargain ... an essential part.
So who the hell knows ...
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Apr 11, 2017 - 05:24pm PT
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Those insisting that we come up with some answer that will settle the matter, once and for all, are IMO committing a kind suicide just to satisfy their discursive minds.
A kind of suicide?
Sometimes the inventive writer coughs up nonsense.
Those insisting we settle the matter once and for all?
Who are these those?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 11, 2017 - 07:37pm PT
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Those insisting that we come up with some answer that will settle the matter, once and for all, are IMO committing a kind suicide just to satisfy their discursive minds
You are talking about certain physical theories or philosophical arguments, I assume. Otherwise there are many mathematicians brain dead from their own hands. Proven theorems pretty much settle issues, unless underlying mathematical frameworks are changed, and that rarely happens.
Occasionally, putative theorem proofs are so complicated or require so many computer steps there might be disagreement about their efficacy. And sometimes, years later, shorter proofs have been found flawed. But for the most part when a theorem is proven that's it - no suicide.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 11, 2017 - 07:40pm PT
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The gross materialists are always on a proven suicide mission.
They think in the future their beaker will save them ......:-)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 11, 2017 - 07:51pm PT
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Occasionally, putative theorem proofs are so complicated or require so many computer steps there might be disagreement about their efficacy. And sometimes, years later, shorter proofs have been found flawed. But for the most part when a theorem is proven that's it - no suicide.
-------
The "suicide" would have occurred if the math folks stopped with the one proof. Instead, they carried on. But they carried on in a world where proofs are the name of the game. Thinking all games are proof games would also be suicide, since you kill a line of inquiry with evaluations from just the home game.
I think some of the frustrations of a science guy - seeking to break out of the classical style understanding we all have per our discursive minds - was made evident in that link I provided a few days ago. Basically he said:
"Space and time are like the taste of a banana, which is useful for monkies. We have evolved so bananas taste good. This might be part of the physical properties of the world we think is important. But no one would argue that the taste of a banana is a fundamental physical property. So I want to explore the idea that space and time are human-centric. Space and time are ways of looking at things that are useful for living as monkies (in a classical world). But for what's going on at a microscopic world, they're not relevant.
"A lot of quantum strangeness is somehow couched in space and time. My hope is that once we remove space and time from our story, suddenly things will look a lot simplier.
"The problem is, space and time are so hard-wired into m that I don't know how to do physics without some concept of space/time."
It's an interesting thought-experiment to consider consciousness in these terms - without extruding it through our classical, discursive sieve.
What might consciousness look lie to you sans space and time?
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 11, 2017 - 08:19pm PT
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Time is God in his impersonal feature.
Time is eternal.
The gross materialists are heavily bound slaves of time.
There's no escape from time for the gross materialists.
Nothing in their beaker will ever save them from Time .......
(this post is not fruitman approved ever)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 11, 2017 - 09:10pm PT
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What might consciousness look like to you sans space and time?
Would I even exist were there no space and time? Therefore, how can one speak of consciousness - a human quality seemingly dependent upon existence of a host? Does "exist" require a certain continuity over a time interval? Is there instantaneous existence on a human scale? Is there instantaneous anything?
I approach the instantaneous all the time in analysis, a branch of mathematics. But I'm never quite there. An ordinary Riemann integral in theory sums an infinite number of "instant" values, but of course the numerical product of any such result is merely a rational approximation.
You have posed a truly existential thought experiment, one that defies common notions of logic. Ed is the expert on space & time here.
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WBraun
climber
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Apr 11, 2017 - 09:14pm PT
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You have posed a truly existential thought experiment, one that defies common notions of logic.
Yes this where one should go.
Beyond the realm of common logic and reason.
Then you will see the truth .....
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Apr 11, 2017 - 09:35pm PT
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"Spacetime as a non-Archimedean geometry over a field of rational numbers and a finite Galois field where rational numbers themselves undergo quantum fluctuations."
I would have thought rational numbers safe from the predations of sub-Planck virtual particles and their cohorts. Is nothing sacred?
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