Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Aug 12, 2018 - 08:14pm PT
|
I think the Earth's ecology is always completely fine and trending towards an equilibrium it never quite reaches.
it sort of surfs the disequilibrium, Earth in equilibrium is a dead planet.
But while I think life will go on after this next extinction, I'm not all that happy about being the cause of it.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Aug 12, 2018 - 09:42pm PT
|
Ed,
You’ve asked many questions, more than I want to answer in a response because it is liable to be much too long. I’ll try to get to the crux underlying your questions.
1. I’m more than supportive of people doing what they feel compelled to do by their inner natures. In my world, the passion of any experience (food, drink, the great outdoors, sex, whatever) is an opportunity to recognize the inherent essence of what and who one is—as long as one does it with complete abandon and spontaneously. Any full absorption nourishes the soul and shows us what one is.
This is not a call to appetitive consumption but aesthetic awareness, which not only means peak experiences but also the most mundane activities in everyday life—what some philosophers have started to call, “everyday aesthetics.” You could say that what I’m talking about here (aesthetic experience) as a kind of flow experience, yet without the orientation to personal achievement of a flow experience. Not doing, but noticing.
I might say that increasingly I see the world more with the eyes of an artist or poet than an ex-academic. Increasingly the world simply shows up in front of me *as it is.* I have found that fighting the world is futile and generates great sadness and anger in me and others. The instructions given to me (and which I have come to understand) say that the greatest affect on anything I can have is see things as they are.
The Tao de Ching, for example, refers to wei wu wei: the action of non-action (which is not passivity). The state of an elite athlete has the body awareness in which the right stroke or movement happens all by itself, without interference of conscious will. It is the purest form of action in any arena, where the game plays the game, the poem writes itself, or where the dancer cannot be separated from the dance.
Taking sides and picking and choosing leads to very poor behaviors and outcomes, imo.
2. Whatever virtue and goodwill I have toward the earth and others all comes out of the essence that is what and who I am. It is that which I’m getting out of the way of myself more and more. Less and less, I don’t see evil as a force to resist but simply as ignorance, as an opaqueness, a state of self-absorption in disharmony with the way things are.
I appreciate Arendt’s view about thinking. There are others.
3. Re-reading my writing on Bayesian analysis, I was too hard or dramatic. What I should have more properly said is that Bayesian analysis is not an area of expertise for me, and I have a bias for messiness that Bayesian analysis does not lend itself to. I liked placing students in ambiguous scenarios and then watching and helping them work their ways out of them. (I tried to put myself out of a job every day.)
I appreciate both of your posts.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Aug 12, 2018 - 10:07pm PT
|
healyje,
I don’t know where you got that image, but I’d say it has far too many weapons in its representation. What’s missing are some skulls (to indicate death of the body), vajras (to indicate what is indestructible), bells (to generate the wisdom of mindfulness), little damru drums, snakes (usually cobras), and mudras (signals that the hands communicate about what’s above and what’s below).
Many grand female deities are meant to symbolize and communicate powerful generative forces in the immanentation of the Absolute. Death is one of those forces, and armory is often meant to symbolize cutting ignorance off at the roots to achieve knowledge.
Symbolism is rampant in any culture, and it goes hand-in-hand with rituals. Pick up a dollar bill, or look at an academic faculty parade by at a graduation. You could say it’s about crowd control. :-)
|
|
Jim Clipper
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 07:35am PT
|
But while I think life will go on after this next extinction, I'm not all that happy about being the cause of it.
Now it's getting a hold of Ed! We got the ozone back! Technology can be developed!
Can we set up a go fund me for Ed and maybe get him an electric skateboard? Something in me says he might prefer a used self powered model.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:04am PT
|
Jogill I'm not sure you are in need of a response but I was never convinced of any multiple universe theories. You could 'chalk up' my scepticism to my perspective as a lawyer getting thrown out of court when I could not prove my theories. Same thing goes for the claim that space itself is expanding. It is just an imaginary frame of reference that has no physical existence and therefore cannot expand. how could you prove the multiverse theory one way or the other? Unless you are a Pthyagorian in disguise. He believed that math was real rather than the physical world.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:35am PT
|
Don:
No one "believes" there are multiple universes. If you did, you would be the only person on earth to believe this.
You are exactly half way to the final state. In the second half you will learn how to work with "absurdities." This comes when one is older and suddenly realizes our culture as a whole is absurd.
I expect you had a rural upbringing in which you used your hands a lot.
edit:
but I was never convinced
Belief is being convinced in the absence of objective data. I don't think there is any data, as yet. We still await a modern Michelson/Morley
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:41am PT
|
I used the word believe only in reference to Pthyagoras, who was a kind of religious figure. For a more contemporary source try carl sagan, who said that if there is no evidence for a theory, you should just forget about it.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:47am PT
|
...maybe get him an electric skateboard?
electric or human powered, they belong to a class of activities I bundle up under the rubric: human projectile sports.
I no longer participate in human projectile sports.
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:51am PT
|
JStannard I agree with you about the Michaelson Morley experiment. I can't find whats wrong with it but it does seem to have marked a wrong turn in physics.
Note that what they were trying to do was prove whether or not an "aether" exists. On the other hand, QED theory (I would never attempt this math, given my blue collar mentality) disclaims the existence of fields.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 08:54am PT
|
You could 'chalk up' my scepticism to my perspective as a lawyer getting thrown out of court when I could not prove my theories. Same thing goes for the claim that space itself is expanding. It is just an imaginary frame of reference that has no physical existence and therefore cannot expand.
Science doesn't "prove theories" as you did in court, if it does anything, it "disproves theories."
What is not disproven is in play. I would also suggest that what a lawyer is concerned with is rather different than what a physicist is concerned with, the affairs of people being central to the law, not so much for physics.
As for the expansion of space-time, you seem to have considerable issues with the idea, but I don't sense you have any problems with the classical idea of space and time, why not? What do you think "space" and "time" are?
Your physical experiences are rather limited, the universe is bigger than what it is you know.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:03am PT
|
Don:
A personal question.
What did you think about your first course in Quantum Mechanics? This has, still, to be resolved after 150 years.
my blue collar mentality) disclaims the existence of fields.
You are taking Michael Faraday on now. Very ambitious. Very ambitious.
Newton did not come up with the field. It must have been tempting. But he missed perturbation theory too so we can give him a break.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:04am PT
|
There are millions and billions of universes with trillions of planets and suns, stars, and moons in the cosmic material manifestations with life and living entities in every one of them.
The gross materialists are always in poor fund of knowledge ......
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:15am PT
|
mouse mind monday...
So it seems rat mind (rattus) is no better than mouse mind (mus) when it comes to putting two and two together to solve a problem, to attain a goal or to avoid a danger. Esp, you might say, where humans and their contrivances are part of the picture. How come?
Courtesy of Mousetrap Monday...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sepi_YcK5Fk
How come? Are they zombies (automata, automated bionts, without consciousness)? Why do their so-called (danger) avoidance strategies in venues like this fall short vis a vis homo mind? Is esthetic mind (ability to feel) more basic, more primal, than cognitive mind (ability to count, predict)?
Is feeling more basic, more primal, than thinking? (I suspect it is.)
PS
If you're ever in the mousetrap market, please avoid the glue paper traps, they're needlessly cruel.
Interesting sidenote: a) if you're big on nuanced terminology hand n hand with nuanced thinking like I am, then you might find this interesting: In classical latin, the word "mus" was applied to both mice and rats without distinction. b) also muscle derives from musculus (little mouse) derives from mus (mouse).
|
|
Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:20am PT
|
JStannard I did not take a course in qm and am not pretending to be a physicsist. However your personal criticisms do not prove your points. I did suffer through three semesters of maxwells equations in grad school at VA Tech which has an excellent EE dept. But you should remember that you are not fighting with me, but writing for an audience reading this thread. I think you will find I am correct on this point, although maxwells equations must be reconcilable with QED. That's over my head.
Ed, likewise I am totally unqualified to explain Einstein's space time, but am all ears and do read your posts. I recognize that the steady state theory should be compatible with relativity, but don't see any conflict there.
* footnote. It just occurred to me that those arguing that "space itself" can expand are, in fact, advocating the medieval concept of the aether.
|
|
Jim Clipper
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:34am PT
|
Ok then Ed, a story for you. Physics class, centripetal force demonstration. Bicycle wheel was spun up on an angle grinder type thing. Professor goes over to attach the axle to a hanging string. System is stable, starts to rotate slightly, then blows up into pieces.
Doctor says something like: oh..., o.k., well, I don't think we'll be having that demonstration today. Professor goes to gather some of the parts. A student retrieves the wheel from across the room. Professor proceeds towards the chalkboards, to continue teaching. Bleeding starts from his forehead. I can see it from way up, in the back row of the class.
Professor doesn't seem to notice. A student towards the front points it out to him. Professor applies pressure, staunches the bleeding. Says something like "oh ... wow", then again starts teaching. He's walking, coherent, doing math, everything seems kosher. Class is hushed by an anxious, but almost reverent silence. I can't stop myself from busting up in the back row.
Next day professor comes back and puts up a diagram on the overhead projector. He notes, that there was a notch in the wheel. It caught on the string. He began showing us the force vectors, change in the direction of the momentum of the system?, and how to calculate it. He may turned his attention upwards. I hope he saw students paying attention, trying to duplicate the work with interest.
Some minds are different. Respectfully, maybe, there are more similarities than differences, among hominids at least. I couldn't hold a candle to those professors.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:37am PT
|
Ed, it seems to me you'd be the perfect candidate to start a thread entitled Physics, Science and Belief. Or Physics and Belief. Or Science and Belief.
Then you and I and others (jstan?) could talk about what belief is and what it isn't, among other things.
|
|
Jim Clipper
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:45am PT
|
There are millions and billions of universes with trillions of planets and suns, stars, and moons in the cosmic material manifestations with life and living entities in every one of them.
The gross materialists are always in poor fund of knowledge ......
Thanks for the smile.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:46am PT
|
HFCS: . . . talk about what belief is and what it isn't, . . . .
Talk about it. Talk about it.
In that mind is difficult (impossible?) to find and pin down (hence a belief), I'd say the topic would be entirely relevant.
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 09:59am PT
|
JStannard I did not take a course in qm and am not pretending to be a physicsist. However your personal criticisms do not prove your points.
Not criticizing. Far from it. I wanted to see how you rationalized QM. People are still trying. We may make progress only by teaching it to three year olds. Take a look at Sean Carroll's youtube on the subject. He uses the many world's approach.
Take a look at Feynman's "Robb Memorial" lectures. They are a treat.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Aug 13, 2018 - 10:06am PT
|
Take a look at Sean Carroll's youtube on the subject.
jstan, nice to see you're a Sean Carroll fan.**
** Or perhaps "fan" is not the right word? Perhaps Sean Carroll viewer is better. lol
On a personal note, I really enjoyed his latest book. Happy to say, his thinking on Bayesian credence, is vs ought, "free will" and "ways of talking" as f(category) all agree with mine. :)
What's more, his latest appearance on JRE, just a week ago, was the cat's meow. :)
https://youtu.be/ZtxzMb9CpTM
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!