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zBrown
Ice climber
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However, as noted earlier, no human in the past 1000 years is known to have been killed by a meteorite or by the effects of one impacting. (There are ancient Chinese records of such deaths.) An individual's chance of being killed by a meteorite is small, but the risk increases with the size of the impacting comet or asteroid, with the greatest risk associated with global catastrophes resulting from impacts of objects larger than 1 kilometer. NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small. In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years. To be able to better calculate the statistics, astronomers need to detect as many of the near-Earth objects as possible. It's likely that we could identify a threatening near-Earth object large enough to potentially cause catastrophic changes in the Earth's environment, and most astronomers believe that a systematic approach to studying asteroids and comets that pass close to the Earth makes good sense. It's too late for the dinosaurs, but today astonomers are conducting ever-increasing searches to identify all of the larger objects which pose an impact danger to Earth.
So I used to have to prepare disaster recovery plans, which got me to thinking about what would happen if an asteroid large enough to demolish it hit the Earth.
I've heard there are about 7.6 billion people on Earth and presumably they all have some form of consciousness. Leaving aside all the other consciousnesses that may or may not exist, what happens to the 7.6 billion?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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^^^ What I believe is that they all lose consciousness, assuming, of course, that their bodies die.
Without the empirical data-stream (from the body), it's lights-out.
But that's not to say that "mind" just is the empirical data-stream. The data of sensibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for consciousness, particularly self-consciousness.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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"aging into their senior years invariably return and review their memories as means to understand their lives, their character, to increase their insight and intelligence about their lives, to commemorate events and achievements that have left their mark on them. Seniors hold dear what is “old-fashioned” and “artistic” so they can review what their lives were."
Going on 82 I guess I'm just not old enough to appreciate this internal museum, to wander its dusty corridors, brushing aside the cobwebs of time. Maybe if I reach 92. Here we have another form of identity theory: States of mind corresponding to years of age.
"The standard line is we can't talk intelligently about what came "before" the big bang because time (linear causation) was "created" at the big bang. The whopper in this silly conceit is" What went BANG. That's when the conversation gets rare indeed... "
Beware, shallow waters here.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Asterisk take 2
Although seemingly not possible now, is it even conceivable that all that massive consciousness could be stored offsite, prior to the, for lack of a better phrase,
"the little bang" occurs?
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nafod
Boulder climber
State college
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Going on 82 I guess I'm just not old enough to appreciate this internal museum, to wander its dusty corridors, brushing aside the cobwebs of time. That's because you have a web page. :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2018 - 01:25pm PT
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MH2, how much wine do you drink? Seriously?
You said: If you can't explain what you mean by that phrase, how do you know that there is such a thing?
Have I not bored this entire thread about the impossibility of "explaining" anything. Explaining in it's usual usage means this happened because of that. A causal fandango. But when you bore down, or back along the causal chain, you find there is no because. It's back to what Madbolter said: Because God did it. Or because it just is (universals).
Another thing is the belief that unless you can "explain" it, "it" might not be "real" (physical to most on this thread). And yet when you get down to what is physical, all you find is energy blipping in and out of existence.
"Real" is a concept.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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For my part, I'm not engaging in any "very abstract far-out philosophy" to say that empiricism HAS NOT and I argue WILL NOT account for universals and general terms. Yet "intelligence" and "mind" depend fundamentally on the fact that entities such as human beings live in a reality populated by general concepts, and our manipulation of them is central to "thinking" itself in our form of self-consciousness.
Whether you agree or not is irrelevant to my above points. The point I'm making is that you continually try to "reframe the terms of the discussion," but you do so in a way that slants things as you wish while conflating key distinctions.
I would just like to point out that philosophy includes an empiricist side. I’ve pointed this out several times on this thread. Every philosophical POV on this thread it would seem is from the rationalist side of one of the great philosophical divides. I’m a big fan of John Dewey – an American philosopher from the empiricist side. He's a philosopher who calls "bullshit" on this rationalist POV.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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nafod: "That's because you have a web page. :)"
Touche! Got me. But I dusted off the museum pieces several years ago and placed them online. I rarely think about the site (or its contents) these days.
JL: "Explaining in it's usual usage means this happened because of that"
You mean like your experience of empty awareness happened as a result of practicing Zen?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nobody I know of on this thread is floating a "rationalist POV."
Also, nobody I know is floating a POV that says anything like, "I can't presently explain X, so God did X."
Let's not strawman, okay?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Dewey would skewer you.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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I seriously don't believe that you understand how or why.
I'm no rationalist. I'm also no empiricist.
What am I?
:-)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Nice tone, mb1! How about this, off the cuff... Rationalism assumes the existence of absolutes before experience (think Plato). Empiricism, on the other hand, assumes that all knowledge can be gained through querying the collective, historical record of actual experience and then reverse-engineering to come up with classes, properties, and methods common to the collective experience.
Edit: What am I? Someone with a religious POV first is what I have always assumed.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2018 - 05:07pm PT
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Nice tone, mb1! How about this, off the cuff... Rationalism assumes the existence of absolutes before experience (think Plato). Empiricism, on the other hand, assumes that all knowledge can be gained through querying the collective, historical record of actual experience and then reverse-engineering to come up with classes, properties, and methods common to the collective experience.
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I know Dewey mostly from studying psychology, though his pragmatic views are also worth close study in my opinion.
It's worth noting the following quote per Dewey:
Dewey's functional psychology had a practical emphasis on action and application. He reasoned against the traditional stimulus-response understanding of the reflex arc in favor of a "circular" account in which what serves as "stimulus" and what as "response" depends on how one considers the situation, and defends the unitary nature of experience. While he does not deny the existence of stimulus, sensation, and response, he disagreed that they were separate, juxtaposed events happening like links in a chain. He developed the idea that there is a coordination by which the stimulation is enriched by the results of previous experiences.
Eyeyonkee's quote above issues from a kind of bit-torrent constructionist model of reality which, like links in a chain, can be reverse engineered to tease out quantifiable "causes" we can label as classes, properties, etc.
Another thing about universals is the common misconception that these were taken on as a matter of faith "before experience," then the world was shoehorned into some wonky model in defense of a rationalistic position. In fact if you were to ask Mike, he would surly tell you that universals were found to be the only logical fit for what was found after years of directly observing experience itself.
That's not a knock at every attempt to scientifically describe all and everything. But at some level of inquiry you're going to either end up with Madbolter's refrain (in jest) that "God did it," or with a handful of first or efficient causes that are themselves uncaused.
No time to go further just now, but when either the form or the emptiness, the one thing or the all, space or matter, infinity or time, or any of the other obvious poles of existence, are held onto as "reality," explaining goes out the window for the lack of a "because."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nice tone, mb1!
No "tone" intended. Just a statement of fact, which is to say that you're not broadly trained in this stuff. There are nuances that really matter and that undirected reading or surfing the Web simply can't fill in.
How about this, off the cuff...
My point exactly. Again, no "tone."
Rationalism assumes the existence of absolutes before experience (think Plato).
Actually, this account fails to explicate. Berkeley was a staunch empiricist, yet he would fall into this account of "rationalism." And "absolutes" is not what's at issue here. I could go on, but my overarching point is that the self-taught, "off the cuff" understanding misses critical distinctions and nuances that really drive a rigorous discussion of mind.
Empiricism, on the other hand, assumes that all knowledge can be gained through querying the collective, historical record of actual experience and then reverse-engineering to come up with classes, properties, and methods common to the collective experience.
Again, this account has serious problems. I'll keep this short.
Hume was the sort of "ultimate" empiricist, and he would flatly deny your assertions regarding "all knowledge," "reverse engineering," "classes," "properties," and "collective experience." In short, no aspect of this account coheres with "empiricism."
In fact, a nominalist-empiricist would be horrified by reference to classes and properties!
Someone with a religious POV first is what I have always assumed.
My POV is not "religious" in anything like a mainstream sense of that term. "Spiritual not religious" is a better fit, but even saying "first" implies that I bring that bias into my philosophy, which is exactly the opposite of how my philosophical education went.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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You're right mb1, I'm just having fun! This thread is like playing a particularly long game of Risk for me...it has nothing to do about anything existential. I'm one of 11 kids. I just want to win the game:)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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The whole thing is a circle jerk.
We have no idea how accidental or coincidental it is because this whole circle jerk / group think between three, four or five players (almost like roshambo) is really just one data point. There's nothing to reference it to.
eeyonkee, I sure hope you're not buying it. I don't think you are.**
People in the greater scientific community who are really on the ball - when discussing basic concepts, general concepts - like we find here - just do not talk like this.
It is sad somewhat but I'm reminded of the line of Hawkeye: "Don't try to understand them and do not try to make them understand you. For they are a breed apart."
A strange roshambo, to be sure.
**But in the age of Trump, Chopra and William Lane Craig who can be sure. These things, eg., trends, have to be looked at sometimes in units nothing smaller than decades.
Remember your EO Wilson, Dawkins, Sagan, Pinker et al and get on with it.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"Fruitcake, you're nothing if not entertaining. On the one had, your scientism is showing. On the other hand, Ed is quick to chastise you as a faux mouthpiece of actual science. I don't much care so long as your ideas are logically coherent and you ease off your religious rants.
Your first example of woo above is hardly nuanced thinking. It touches on the difference between perception and whatever is "out there." Per this question you have on the one hand the classical, Newtonian idea that the moon we see is exactly the moon that is out there. We have exhaustively examined the fact that the light waves we "see" out there are not in fact the "blue" we consciously experience, and if you say as much you are left with some scrap of identity theory which in my book is the biggest woo going. You might want to look at a little Kant - oh wait, there's new data that excuses Kant from the conversation. As though Kant was talking about data."
How else does one explain this sort of jr high (trumpian) rhetoric, pugilism, namecalling, etc.
MB1 brushed off my query into his post from eight years ago. But I'd encourage everyone to read it. Maybe twice. Maybe three times. To get an overarching sense of it.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1083108&msg=1094193#msg1094193
Because it expresses an overarching sentiment, it speaks to the mindset of the poster, it seems to me, in addition to expressing particular stances re a number of issues. But it is worth asking, imo, if this is the sort of sentiment, else mindset, the bulk of Sapiens should aspire to? Imo, in my case, no friggin way.
So I see it as relevant and I see it as speaking, in some measure, to the state and health of today's academic philosophy cliques as well.
What good is this sort of rhetoric-driven academic philosophy that, it seems, for the most part, can hardly put three paragraphs together toward something substantive and useful - anything substantive and useful - without linking to ancient to medieval philosophy.
Point 1: This ain't the 17th century, it's the 21st century. Point 2: I find the attitude, the sentiment, whatever you want to call it, arising from the STEM communities so, so, so very much more inspiring than what we've been getting from our resident philosopher, resident trumper, resident (albeit "nonregistered") postmodernist.
Thank the gods I'm grounded in 40 years of science and applied science so I can see through the bs presented here. By this crazy roving roshambo crew.
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Norton
climber
The Wastelands
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Remember your EO Wilson, Dawkins, Sagan, Pinker et al and get on with it.
No woo in that group, adding Hitchens, Harris, Stephen Fry
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Fruitcake... On the other hand, Ed is quick to chastise you as a faux mouthpiece of actual science. I don't much care so long as your ideas are logically coherent and you ease off your religious rants.
I mean, really, is this not childesque and transparent and trumpian as just about anything you can muster?!
First the name-calling (fruitcake); then the pugilist divide and conquer intentioned rhetoric (Ed is quick... lol); then the reference to "religious rant".
Anyone here ready to say Largo's "unscientific rants" pale in comparison my "religious rants"? Are we interested in truth here? Accuracy? Honest discourse?
And this from the guy who penned that profound John Muir-like bit (most recently ending the Gobright vimeo video piece). What a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Trumpian, yes, but not Trump - as Trump could never string such words together in such profundity. Amazing.
...
No woo in that group, adding Hitchens, Harris, Stephen Fry
Or how about, for another eg, all the folks at the Beyond Belief 2006 symposium. And the list could go on. And on and on.
No one talks like that. It's crazy ridiculous. And I wrote the entire bit above without even considering the WB element in the mix. Wow.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Well you're never too old to learn something new
roshambo (plural roshambos) (games) the game of rock paper scissors. (as three words, ro sham bo) the syllables called out by players of rock paper scissors to synchronize their timing.
Gonna have to inlude somebody aware of it in my offworld brain dump.
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