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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nice posts Batrock.
Ultimately, there's no reason why Reality should be in conflict whatever the highest truth is.
It's just that we think our knowledge of both Science and Religion to be more complete than it is.
Peace
Karl
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Tahoe climber
Trad climber
Tahoe
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Karl,
Riposte!
Prove that the universe IS a dream within some vast consciousness.
My $ .02:
In the end, we have to go on with our perceived reality.
For instance, I can't prove that gravity isn't a law within a dream of mine; that it, in fact, REALLY exists.
But I have to go on living with the assumption that it does, (a.k.a. perceived reality) and that's why I fall down after attempting a move that's too difficult for me.
I have tested gravity many times - so far, it has worked every time.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 8, 2006 - 05:26pm PT
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Hi Ed,
Thanks for the great info. If you saw stars when one you hit your head you probably should go to the doctor?
I did that as a boy. I wonder what causes the stars, I had a mild concussion.
Juanito
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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I think there is a value in recognizing what both science and spiritualy tell us in spades, that the world is not as we see it. That recognition makes further exploration possible without which, the mystery of our existence becomes taken for granted.
To know how life would be different if we were clearer on the ultimate questions is just speculation until you know some answers.
Science has already broken down matter into a vast sea of the same vibrating energy. For science, it's ultimately all one. Somehow this power finds order and becomes this illusory universe with it's curved space time and sentient life within. That in itself could define it as consciouness. The question becomes the nature of that organizing force. It is the confluence of natural laws or a reflection of the conceptual power of that organizing power?
Was there really a beginning when linear time started? Will it end? How could something like that get started and is there a time googles and googles of years previously? Can those ideas be squared with curved time? Is anything outside of time? Is anything outside the universe? Do the possibilties reflect the sensibility of science or spirituality? Which has to ignore the the implications of it's theories? Both?
I'm not trying to restate intelligent design here. Evolution could also reflect the way consciousness organizes time and manifestation.
Food for thought. If getting too deep into these questions blows your mind. Just stay there a while.
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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There is intelligent design. How can someone unintelligent design you. I know, a bunch of energy just mysteriously chaoticly comes together, and bingo!
All the parts of my car just chaoticly came together and bingo! Ford, Chevy, Toyota, etc. There was no one behind the design and construction. The parts mysteriously appeared and then built themselves.
This is good business, no labor to pay for.
Maybe now you can burn me at the stake ........
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Werner on a stick. Would you like that with Mustard and Relish?
;-)
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Ouch!
climber
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LOL! I don't know Werner, that car looks pretty chaotic to me.
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WBraun
climber
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Yes, this car was built by the Dover school board.
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Wonder
climber
WA
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who ever is having this dream, is having a nightmare.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Well, I go off to the museum (the de Young had a collection of photographs on exhibition I wanted to see) and come back to find this thread expanding.
Karl, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a dream is that it occurs during sleep. It is an interesting question what I am "thinking" when I am dreaming, but this train of thought leads off in a direction you didn't want to explore.
If by dreaming you mean some state of consciousness in which we create a reality which is nothing more than our thoughts, well, sure... but I doubt that dreaming the idea can be separated from the physiology of dreaming (but I am a materialist). So I don't know what would happen if I slept 1000 years and dreamt during that time... what would the dreams be like?
I will leave thinking about consciousness until I reread Dennett's Conciousness Explained again, which I thought was extremely interesting the first time through.
Perhaps a direction this thread could go in is how ideas can have enough power to cause people to act in a particular way... whether or not there is a supernatural aspect to reality, the idea is compelling and ubiquitous.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 9, 2006 - 01:25am PT
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So is the universe is expanding in both space and time?
So the Balloon analogy is kind of weak.
It is impossible for a human to visualize 4 dimensional expansion?
Are the electrons, etc expanding?
Could we not just be a physicis experiment.
A simple simulation.
Is it not better to be just the village idiot?
Juanito
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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So is the universe is expanding in both space and time?
We make no distinction between space and time in terms of describing the dimensionality of the universe. It's all expanding.
So the Balloon analogy is kind of weak.
It is impossible for a human to visualize 4 dimensional expansion?
Not impossible, but it takes some thinking about, and specific examples you can work out so that when you do it in 4D (and higher) you get it.
Are the electrons, etc expanding?
Electrons have no physical extent, but that is another problem. Anything with physical extent is expanding.
Could we not just be a physicis experiment.
A simple simulation.
OK, here is a story... people thought that there was a possibility that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) might create matter which would cause the universe to collapse into a lower energy state vacuum. In this state, the universe could be a very different place, and everything we know would be gone, including us. Think of RHIC pulling the bathtub plug and the universe as we know it draining into the lower energy state...
So I was out at BNL working on an experiment to run at RHIC and I had planned a day or two climbing in the 'Gunks ([guilt]I was out for a couple of weeks working lots of hours and felt I could get a weekend day or two during that time[/guilt]). We were up on some ledge (probably the Grand Traverse Ledge) and sitting talking with some other parties.
them: "Where are you from?"
me: "California, San Francisco Bay Area"
them: "What are you doing out east?"
me: "I'm working at Brookhaven on this experiment."
them: "So do you think that new accelerator will destroy the universe?"
me: "If it happens, it will be so quick you wont know about it."
It wasn't the answer they were expecting.
No, I don't think the universe is a physics experiment...
Is it not better to be just the village idiot?
Suit yourself.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 10, 2006 - 04:04am PT
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Ed wrote:
"Karl, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a dream is that it occurs during sleep. ...
If by dreaming you mean some state of consciousness in which we create a reality which is nothing more than our thoughts, well, sure... but I doubt that dreaming the idea can be separated from the physiology of dreaming (but I am a materialist). So I don't know what would happen if I slept 1000 years and dreamt during that time... what would the dreams be like?"
Ed, one of the distinguishing charactoristics of balloons is that they are made of rubber and filled with air. If you don't try to understand, you're safe from understanding.
Just more food for thought. You have no proof at all of anything that doesn't consider this fact:
Every single bit of data you have about this world has come to you through your consciousness. Maybe this world of research and supertopo exists outside of your own awareness and maybe it doesn't and you have no way to prove it because all data is going to be filtered through your consciousness.
And no mater what happens to you in this world, a nobel prize or a hot babe or creating world peace will not make you happy if your state of mind doesn't react favorably to it. So you may or may not be interested in consciousness, but it is the singularly most precious thing to you and determines everything about your fulfillment whether you are a materialist or spiritualist.
So maybe this world is the dream of a consciousness some call God and maybe you're a dream creature in it. Maybe not. Science doesn't have the tools to know just like the boogeyman in your dreams can't know he's being dreamed either.
Let's say we want to stick with materialism for a moment. You'll postulate that energetic and chemical interactions in our brains somehow create this consciousness that lights our existence. If consciousness can exist via this kind of material interaction, who's to say that's the only way consciousness comes into existence. The energetic and chemical interplay in the fabric of the universe might breed some other vast and complex consciousness.
Not that way I think it works but just pointing out that materialism doesn't preclude a wider consciousness at play in the universe.
Peace
Karl
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 10, 2006 - 07:54am PT
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Rajuangeneesh,
"Anal-ogy", well as usual you're only half right but the rest of this thread is a bunch of clueless pseudo-hindu, new age, and scientific mumbo-jumbo. Anyone with even a half-ass education has taken at least one course in Klausmology and knows that infinite universes are continuously formed as Klaus farts and that they expand forever. Hell, sometimes he creates universes within universes. And yes, you live on the outside skin of one of those few "bubbles" whose constituent constants happen to be agreeable to life. This means everything what you smell today has been around since the beginning; so the next time you think life stinks, you only need to follow your nose back to the big bang to know who's ass to kiss to fix it.
Pack of friggin' fuktards...
[ P.S. And for inquiring minds that want to know what existed before the "big bang" all I can say is it involves way too much Olde E and a bunch of other sh#t you don't want or need to know about and is none of your damn business anyway. As for the origins of life; well, other than saying all the basic building blocks were "designed" in the first 10 picoseconds after the big bang it's probably another intellectual tract best left unprobed. Oh, and for you PhD's - when you fart - you aren't God and the only universe being created is a nasty mess in your drawers so pucker up. ]
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 10, 2006 - 11:17am PT
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Karl wrote: "Just more food for thought. You have no proof at all of anything that doesn't consider this fact:
Every single bit of data you have about this world has come to you through your consciousness. Maybe this world of research and supertopo exists outside of your own awareness and maybe it doesn't and you have no way to prove it because all data is going to be filtered through your consciousness."
The fact that everything is processed through our conciousness does not preclude our understanding that and taking it into account. In fact, the emperical nature of science explicitly recognizes the limitations of our conciousness, and our senses. That is why a mathematically logical explanation is a part of understanding the measured quantities of observation. And the measurements are not subjective, but are describable and repeatable. The fact that an atomic bomb explodes cannot be explained by mass halucenation.
"And no mater what happens to you in this world, a nobel prize or a hot babe or creating world peace will not make you happy if your state of mind doesn't react favorably to it. So you may or may not be interested in consciousness, but it is the singularly most precious thing to you and determines everything about your fulfillment whether you are a materialist or spiritualist."
But if you think that the way scientists learn to think is simple, that is, subjective, then you have badly misunderstood what a scientist is. The last thing you want to waste your time on is something which you believed to be true but turned out to be wrong, false... we spend a lot of our training become skeptics and questioning authority, including our own...
"So maybe this world is the dream of a consciousness some call God and maybe you're a dream creature in it. Maybe not. Science doesn't have the tools to know just like the boogeyman in your dreams can't know he's being dreamed either. "
It is relatively easy to posit this hypothesis, and in fact by avoiding precession in what you mean you cannot prove or disprove anything, for me it is entertainment, but it ultimately has no interesting results. That is why I am not a philosopher.
"Let's say we want to stick with materialism for a moment. You'll postulate that energetic and chemical interactions in our brains somehow create this consciousness that lights our existence. If consciousness can exist via this kind of material interaction, who's to say that's the only way consciousness comes into existence. The energetic and chemical interplay in the fabric of the universe might breed some other vast and complex consciousness. "
I do not believe that your experience of conciousness is the same thing as what actually happens to you physiologically. Read Oliver Sach's Awakenings and his experience observing his patients. Another example of something I was taught, that the "brain" fills in the blind spot in your visual field. Well it turns out that the brain simply ignores the blind spot, no energy is spent "filling it in.", This is contrary to your experience of conciousness, but it is easily demonstrated to be fact. You should be skeptical that your experience of conciousness is what conciousness is.
"Not that way I think it works but just pointing out that materialism doesn't preclude a wider consciousness at play in the universe. "
Perhaps, but I suspect that "conciousness" means something very different then what you'd be willing to accept.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 10, 2006 - 04:26pm PT
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Good grief it was a joke for god's sake, please carry on with what really is a good conversation - even a decent question from rajuangeneesh...
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 10, 2006 - 05:21pm PT
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Ed wrote
"You should be skeptical that your experience of conciousness is what conciousness is"
I'm absolutely skeptical about it. Thus I have spent as much time experimenting and thinking in this realm as you have in the science realm. The abstract dimensions of it are just as hard to articulate in "layman's terms" as the abstact dimensions of physics.
I did so because I'm very practical. If consciousness beyond the mind and it's physicality is essential to our existence beyond this life, then my time is well spent. If we're just meat, we're all toast in a few decades.
Science has given us a better understanding of the workings of this world but mostly used that understanding to deplete our scarce resources, pollute our environment, and give us the tools for our own wholesale destruction. Religion tempered with more science would be saner but Science is killing us much faster than religions ever could, and could use a value of wisdom rather than being the bitches of violent governments.
PEace
karl
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 10, 2006 - 07:12pm PT
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Science is no more killing us then the cams and ropes that you take on a climb. You decide how to use these tools, the tools themselves provide you a capability.
What you do with the capability is a choice.
However, it is difficult or impossible to do something without the capability. So I think it is hard to argue that we should not persue obtaining a capability. We should do science. We should also decide as a community what to do with the capabilities that science provides us.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 10, 2006 - 10:27pm PT
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If the people who are most intelligent devote themselves to providing the capability instead of wisdom, won't the rest of humanity abuse the capabilty?
You could give your 12 year old kids machine guns. Wise or unwise? How different than working for the government honing nukes, cruise missles and bioweapons?
I think a good separate thread would be "if we didn't persue science, what would the world look like?" also "if we didn't persue science, what would the world look like?"
That's not to say that over thousands of years we wouldn't have developed in other ways. We chose to chase science without ethics regarding the capability, and now it's only luck (or karma) that we're not all dead.
I'll start it!
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 10, 2006 - 10:30pm PT
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"and now it's only luck (or karma) that we're not all dead."
No no there is a plan going on, you will not be able to stop it by staying here.
You have no power to drive away this mist.
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