The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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PSP also PP

Trad climber

Berkeley

Jan 24, 2015 - 02:29pm PT

"Looking at things from an eternal spiritual perspective, material suffering is a good thing."

Go ask a tree to give its eternal spiritual perspective and it will give you the correct answer.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Jan 24, 2015 - 02:52pm PT

I asked the rafters in my house but they appear to be brooding over something.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Jan 24, 2015 - 02:59pm PT

I'd be very careful equating SPECT results and 'conscious awareness'. The latter is a much smaller subset of the former.

You're driving to go buy some Twinkies. How much of what you're doing are you consciously aware of? Not much. Most of the process is autonomic, for which there will be zero persistent memory - short or long term.

Take a scan of a person's brain while driving. Lots going on. And the driver's consciously aware of almost none of it.

Now put a stripper named Twink and a box of Twinkies in the passenger seat.

Good luck getting to your destination.

Why did I just type that?

Not all algorithms are useful.

Ward Trotter

Trad climber

Jan 24, 2015 - 03:29pm PT

Look ,your brain is not configured to be consciously aware of garden variety "autonomic" functions which you described---that's the job of the peripheral nervous system. The lower centers of your brain then processes this data in a way that does not require the same novel memory functions or in-depth localized associations as would be required if I met you along the way during my Twinkie epic ,and later remembered your name. This fact is already a given. Not a current revelation. Part of why the metabolic requirement of the lower brain is lower than the cerebrum.
The tall order sitting before you in this connection is how to prove that the well-known sensory function of the autonomic nervous system ,and it's processing by the lower brain ,can be extrapolated to be "thee" model that inclusively explains human consciousness. I think most of neuroscience has been there and done that.

Just for the record , I avoid sweets like Twinkies and try to keep my high glycemic carbs to a rare minimum as part of an on-going biohack of epic proportions.
Now I'm off to run some HiiT intervals down at ye old 1/4 mile oval track with my trusty canine from whom I draw my special powers.

jgill

Boulder climber

Colorado

Jan 24, 2015 - 03:52pm PT

Jgill: ". . . for all intents and purposes free will exists, even though the brain is subject to the various scientific laws and principles"

MikeL:It seems to me that this also takes you to places you’d finally resist against. Holding both means trouble. It would look like what Buddhists call the Tetralema:

It is not X OR the opposite of X;
It is not X AND the opposite of X;
It is neither not X NOR not-the opposite of X.

I have no problem holding conflicting opinions simultaneously. It's a koan one must solve. I would have thought Buddhist meditation would have taken you there.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jan 24, 2015 - 03:54pm PT

I would be cautious in [globally] assigning elements of the 'subconscious' to "lower" brain / nervous system components.

As I mentioned before, I'm often painfully aware of my normally subconscious sound/speech processing functionality and during those moments it seems very much 'co-resident' with my conscious agencies (deliberately plural) and I suspect not a function of the 'lower' brain.

Flip Flop

Trad climber

Truckee, CA

Jan 24, 2015 - 03:59pm PT

Do Be Do Be Do

Bushman

Social climber

The island of Tristan da Cunha

Jan 24, 2015 - 04:08pm PT

Great post about Sam Harris crucifixion by PSP or PP.
Gotta say with all due disrespect this thread could now and again use more levity, or silliness, or stupidity...wait

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jan 24, 2015 - 05:04pm PT

Why do we “have to” . . . ?

Do you believe you could show that there is anything that is “necessary” in reality?

if not atleast necessary, isn't it atleast fun exploring?

i'm still in statuest awe over the fact that everyword i blow out over my tongue and threw my teeth, can grow matter in ur brain, and cause mountains to move.

Each individual's voice is there own distinct dedication to creation

if not in atleast meaning, then in atleast sound-waves

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Jan 24, 2015 - 05:16pm PT

an agent capable of making decisions, (at least partially) independent of antecedent causes

I usually carry several of those in a pocket.

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa

Jan 24, 2015 - 05:26pm PT

Actually I thought that the statement that all of evolutionary life is just an algorithm was quite entertaining. Only on a science dominated thread could you get away with a statement like that (Sully where are you?).

And then there's healyje, wisdom is simply what we make of knowledge + experience. One doesn't 'triumph' over the other - one just acts wisely or unwisely in the face of what we know. Definitely a statement of rationality gone amok, especially in the context of heart vs brain as the center of human consciousness. Wisdom has a component of compassion to it, which goes beyond making a rationally wise decision.

A good example of this was a recent New York Times article on an experiemental farm in Nebraska where needless cruelty was practiced against farm animals all in the name of science, despite the fact that the ranchers for whose benefit the experiements were supposedly done, objecting both to how they were done and to the rather useless results. The scientists carried on nevertheless as the experiements had to be finished no matter what.

The other thing I think is being missed here is the constant interruption of processes by decisions made along the way, not to mention by out of the blue, unexpected events. There is a feed back mechanism at work whereby something goes predictably until something disrupts it and then a new pattern/algorithm has to start. It seems to me that disrupted life patterns leave room for at least a limited amount of personal agency.

And then there's maybe the wisest statement so far on the matter by eyonkee, saying that in spite of the interesting nature of these discussions and the logic of no free will, we still have to act as though there was such a thing.

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Jan 24, 2015 - 06:01pm PT

Jgill: I have no problem holding conflicting opinions simultaneously.

I think it’s probably more than that, John. Contradictions are inherent in all texts. (See Derrida.)

I would have thought Buddhist meditation would have taken you there.

There’s no “there.” We’re just talking, remember? That’s why it’s so difficult (for me at least) to take anything very concretely or seriously.

Jan: Wisdom has a component of compassion [in] it, . . . .

. . . and emptiness—which is what I’m trying to point out to Jgill above.

We can claim that an algorithm, a recipe, a routine, a script, a pattern gets developed as a part of evolution, but I’d say that is the vision of perfect hindsight at work. It’s a construction after the fact. Try doing it forward. You won’t have much to say, I’ll bet.

One more time, . . . WHY must we act as though there is free will?? (No, really.) What happens if we don’t? As Tvash points out in his own way above rather well, everything works out even though we may not be aware of it happening in real time. Take your hands off the controls, and you live, the universe works, reality does not stop.

There is unlimited freedom in relaxing and letting go. But for most, it’s perhaps the most unnatural non-thing to non-do.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jan 24, 2015 - 06:21pm PT

i agree Jan,

Deterministic agency, which is I believe all we have, merely requires running a sophisticated algorithm and then having an after-the-fact sense of agency about it. No woo involved.

doesn't an 'algorithm' imply a "Pre-determined" set of guidelines which will produce a specified outcome?

But i thought there wasn't supposed to be anything pre-determined before the big-bang??

Jan

Mountain climber

Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa

Jan 24, 2015 - 06:22pm PT

I've read all those existential writers and while most people here have an existentialist world view of one sort or another (how can one not in the modern world?), it seems to me that existentialism with its power to say no, still accounts for some measure of free will. Mainly though, I was amused at the professional jargon and the idea that all life is formulaic.That seems so contradictory to the spirit of the arts and humanities.

HighDesertDJ

Trad climber

Jan 24, 2015 - 06:23pm PT

But i thought there wasn't supposed to be anything pre-determined before the big-bang??

Nobody has any idea. Well, people have ideas there's just no actual evidence to support them.

WBraun

climber

Jan 24, 2015 - 06:26pm PT

there's just no actual evidence to support them.

All evidence is there.

Modern scientists do not know how to find the evidence.

They are fools who are stuck only on one plane .....

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Jan 24, 2015 - 07:04pm PT

Nobody has any idea. Well, people have ideas there's just no actual evidence to support them.

well i was jus being as provocactivally fundamental as possible.

if life as we know it here on earth started here on earth and no where else in the universe. The 'Can-Do Ability' that is being talked about couldn't have rised without the proper elements in motion. Elements can veer from their anticipated trajectory. Is that change by 'will' or by 'choice'?

The Question is; at what point did choice enter the solar system?

Obliviously i have a choice in how i respond to ur post.

Bushman

Social climber

The island of Tristan da Cunha

Jan 24, 2015 - 07:09pm PT

What evidence is there of a second runaway expanding universe smacking into our runaway expanding universe and creating another big bang? Might our big bang have been created by such an event? Whatever happened to the previous two colliding expanding runaway universes if that happened? If that happened would there ever have existed or would there ever exist a predermined universe before or after this universe? Is it crazy to ask such questions when there might never be an answer? If there might never be an answer might there also be an answer? Would asking or not asking such questions in some small way affect the future? Might that action or inaction also have been predetermined? Is conjecture predetermined?