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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 03:27pm PT
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"If you look into it a little bit she "did some work" she is a zen student."
Yeah, so? I've been an Abrahamic religions student. For many years. (Despite your silly quip a couple days ago.)
That doesn't mean I subscribe to it.
Anyways the proof's in the pudding. Read her material. Watch her lectures. Listen to her audible. It's very clear, down-to-earth and, last but not least, science-based. Then compare THAT to what we read here. From the woo pool. That's what I mean.
.....
Norton, he's useful.
He's serves as a reminder who else we have out there across the spectrum as part of the game.
Without this forum, our lives would never cross.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Feb 18, 2015 - 03:32pm PT
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Despite it's size, we probably share the Milky Way with only a few thousand other technological species by my crude estimations.
I've been wondering what it would be like to live in a solar system with two technological species, either sharing a planet or on two close by planets. With a binary planet, only a few tens of thousands of miles need separate the two.
A clash of survival strategies, assuming two such potentially different environments, would seem likely, but cooperation might win the day in the end. Putting ourselves into such a situation - would we be dealing with a hive mind? Machines? Vogons? Beings with much more complex emotions than ours? What form would alien emotions take and how could we understand them? Could we adapt enough to feel them? Try imagine a new emotion without piecing it together with your existing ones. How plastic is our own species in adapting to coexist or even hybridize with another?
What would it be like to observe a civilization through a telescope for centuries before actually meeting them?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 03:43pm PT
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The questions you ask and what you imagine are why so many of us were Star Trek fans. And remain so. Fanatically. :)
Just a few weeks ago, I enjoyed watching the original War of the Worlds (c1960 or so) again. Fun!
a few thousand other technological species by my crude estimations
I'm afraid I don't share your optimism. It's the lack of radio signals that does it for me - as BASE and I discussed here at more length several years ago now.
It's ubiquitous in any ETI environment. Radio signals. Spreading out in all directions at the speed of light. But where is it? Nothing. Nada. As an example two arecibos are able to communicate with each other across 15K light years. And yet... Zero.
How many planets just within 15k? (We did the research here a few years back. Should be here somewhere if it wasn't deleted.) And that's just Arecibo quality.
Doesn't bode well, imo.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Feb 18, 2015 - 03:53pm PT
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I appreciate skepticism. But if you are skeptical about things like consciousness being sourced purely from material, what's the alternative?
Skepticism by itself is pretty boring, conversationally speaking...
No real skeptic denies that this is true; "consciousness being sourced purely from material". Skeptics are far from boring, they are leading the edge in putting science back into every topic that has unscientific beliefs.
Check out the "Skeptical Inquirer" and the "Skeptic" magazines.
The skeptic movement pulled me back into reality.
It is based on one thing, Scientific proof is needed to verify the claim..
Have we ever seen any non-living thing exhibit consciousness of any sort?
No
Do we have ANY evidence of there being any kind of life on other planets in the Milky Way?
No
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:07pm PT
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SETI is a failure by modern scientists because their listening instruments are made from only the gross physical materials
which do not receive the subtle material energies.
The denizens of other material planets operate in the subtle material plane which modern gross material instruments can never pick up.
The modern foolish scientists have no clue what they are doing except to brainwash each other that the gross physical plane is all in all.
Thus they are trapped deeply in their rut of scientism .....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:14pm PT
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Science folks need to learn to read... reading comprehension a wonderful thing.
If survival is enhanced by moral behavior fine, that's swell, if not then that's fine too. Survival trumps all... life feeds upon life. I'll eat you, now you eat me. The paradigm is survival and procreation and that's it. It's simple isn't it? Justify human morality by virtue of evolution and the symbiotic relationship between X and Y... silly stuff indeed. Where did love come from? Such a fine question.
Try answering it as if it were an evolutionary product and see what's left of it.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:19pm PT
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Dingus, not that you asked, but that was an excellent critique. :)
I almost fired off a couple of those myself and then it occurred to me... been there done that... like 3-4 years ago... with Paul.
So I bailed.
Justify human morality by virtue of evolution...
What alternative do we have?
Of course here I mean an alternative, too, that holds up under the scrutiny of modern scientific understanding. QT What alternative? ANS Zero.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:22pm PT
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HFCS Said" Yeah, so?"
You said her work is science based.It is not, it is zen based that is where she got her training and she is just telling you all the benefits of meditation with a scientific spin.
The basis of her training is the heart sutra 'Form is emptiness and emptiness is form".
You wouldn't know any of this because you have never done any of "the work" yet you call it woo.
You were also very enamored with the atheist meditator ( I forgot his name); it was the same thing he had a science spin but his work is mostly based on his meditation work.
you actually like the guys with the woo training ; but are so naive that you don't know it. It is a tragic comedy and you are the star!
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:24pm PT
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Werner's symptoms of autism brings up a interesting concept
"Savants"
Could Werner read Sanskrit at an early age???
Well if he had a teacher, it's a big so what,
but if could read it without any instruction what so ever, then it is very interesting.
This concept of being a savant leads directly to the investigation into other mental states that some people claim they experience, and are "out of this world".
Could these experiences be just a way to Shut down normal mental processes, and when they shut these mental processes down they have religious experiences of various sorts. Some of us are able to go right to these mental states when the meditate or climb or ski....
Of course there are different levels of these mental states
Why would I believe that these mental states are part of shutting down normal brain processes, because we all know what the normal mental processes are, normal life.
But happens when you shut down certain brain processes with a device??
The people become savants.
Check this out
Switching on Creativity
The extraordinary abilities of savants have inspired a brain-stimulation technique for enabling creative insight
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/switching-on-creativity-special/
Accidental Genius
A blow to the head can sometimes unmask hidden artistic or intellectual gifts. Might we all have hidden capacities that could be unleashed without brain injury?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/accidental-genius/
More about savants
http://www.scientificamerican.com/search/?q=savants&display=search&x=6&y=8
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:30pm PT
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You said her work is science based.It is not...
That is just silly. Research her.
She's a clinical psychologist and a professor at Stanford. Get the Audible I referenced above and she uses "neuroscience-based" or psychologically-based" in every other paragraph!
Of course her work is science-based.
And besides, it's the modern age now, just as you know. So just as one needn't / shouldn't speak in terms of Arabic algebra or English chemistry or French physics, one needn't / shouldn't speak in terms of Zen mindfulness.
So-called "mindfulness" is simply clearing the mind of (or training to clear the mind of) - as she herself describes it - (1) critical commentary (this isn't right, this needs to be better), (2) time traveling past and future (3) self-referencing (I am this, I am not this; they are not this); (4) social thinking (that was mean, she should apologize). Clearing the mind of these things, particularly when they are intrusive and unwanted, when they are not needed to solve a problem or to figure something out, is of course a good thing. Good news: Zen not required.
So-called "mindfulness" is based on the realization that the idle mind by default gravitates to the aforementioned mental actions. You don't need Zen to gain this realization. You don't Zen to explore the mental life. You don't need Zen to train yourself in alleviating the mind of these four mental functions when they're somehow one way or another over-working you. Sorry.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Feb 18, 2015 - 04:47pm PT
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Interesting use of selective reasoning, fructose.
How plastic is our own species in adapting to coexist or even hybridize with another?
Quite plastic I would say. Otherwise why would modern humans contain the genes of neanderthal and denisova? Not to mention that the oldest Y-DNA we have comes from an African American man in South Carolina whose DNA signature is 100,000 years older than Homo sapiens and we haven't a clue what pre sapiens West African species he is a hybrid of, though we guess an African Homo heidelbergensis which if true, is spectacularly badly named.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 05:01pm PT
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He simply doesn't want to understand morality... or morality systems... in anything but God in Heaven terms.
Go over to Fox News and Views... it's rife with this embrace.
When it's in your blood there's no getting it out.
(Not without the heavy lifting.)
;)
.....
.....
Fox News and Views is so funny...
If it ain't OUR "compassionate and loving" "religion" then it is a "cult."
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 18, 2015 - 05:34pm PT
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Tvash: Everything we are evolved, by definition.
Tvash, in a thread devoted to science, that should not be your answer. That answer is beginning to sound like dogma, "religious" in a manner of speaking, I would say. Your answer should be that data shows that what we are (all of it, I suppose, whatever that is) has emerged through evolution. If so, show it. This is what science does. It may be a small point in the face of what you consider overwhelming evidence (which I do not see here), but if you be a scientist, it is what you do.
If evolution is the answer to every question, why do we still have questions at all? What use does it provide to know evolution as an answer? Such an “answer” tells us almost nothing at all. It is simply a theory of how things have happened, not how they will happen. As a basis for predictability, it comes up embarrassingly short.
P.S. There is no logic in arguing by definition. That constitutes a tautology, and there is no discovery or insight in that.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Feb 18, 2015 - 05:37pm PT
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^^^^^^^
Is "perhaps" similar to the word "if?"
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Feb 18, 2015 - 05:37pm PT
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HFCS quoted his last zen teacher that he likes! "So-called "mindfulness" is simply clearing the mind of (or training to clear the mind of) - as she herself describes it - (1) critical commentary (this isn't right, this needs to be better), (2) time traveling past and future (3) self-referencing (I am this, I am not this; they are not this); (4) social thinking (that was mean, she should apologize). "
those same insights are here over 1000 years old; no science is necessary to attain (really live )these or her words. But some kind of practice usually is ( unless you are very unusual).
The Third Patriarch of Zen
Verses on the Faith Mind
Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T'san
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such
erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity by passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality;
To assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.
do not remain in the dualistic state.
Avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace of this and that,
of right and wrong,
the mind-essence ewill be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend.
And when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.
When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes:
As when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because of the subject (mind):
the mind (subject) is such because of things (object).
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult.
But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute:
the faster they hurry, the slower they go.
And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited:
Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming not going.
Obey the nature of things (your own nature)
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When the thought is in bondage the truth is hidden
for everything is murky and unclear.
And the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many.
Distinctions arise
from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.
Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment
there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams or flowers in air -
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong,
such thoughts must
finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are,
of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached,
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion,
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.
For the unified mind in accord with the way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage:
Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind’s power.
Here thought, feeling,
knowledge and imagination are of no value.
In this world of suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony with this reality
just say when doubt rises "not two".
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension
or diminution in time and space:
In it a single thought is ten thousand years.
Emptiness here, emptiness there,
but the infinite universe
stands always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments
That have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things,
move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.
Translated from the Chinese by Richard B. Clarke
Featured in Jack Kornfield, Teachings of the Buddha
Introductory quotations
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"Central" mysticism insights
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"Other" spiritual wisdom
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"Central" poetry insights
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"Other" poetry insights
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Spirituality & the wider world
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Sources of
quotations
The words are just the finger pointing ; they won't help much. You have to do the work as your new teacher highly recommends ; sit down and shut up, (ie meditate).
just pointing out her teaching is based on meditation (zen means meditation)
got to go
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 05:43pm PT
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We don't have a clue what evolution has in store for us...
Yes you do.
In your next life you will become a horse which will be killed for it's hoof to make glue for some natural organics person resoles .....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 18, 2015 - 06:55pm PT
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That's a very roundabout way to get glue!
The Universe moves in mysterious ways.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Feb 18, 2015 - 07:45pm PT
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The Universe moves in mysterious ways.
Really? Thought evolution revealed all. Contemplate the mystery it can surprise.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 18, 2015 - 07:48pm PT
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re: "science vs humanities"
re: "science vs woo"
"Really? Thought evolution revealed all..."
You guys sure fancy twisting words, sentences and meanings around. I guess that is what you guys have academically "evolved" to do over there when you don't have anything else?
Sure is an eye-opener though.
No wonder academia, at least sides of it, can be so ridiculed if not despised.
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