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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Most unintelligent answer ever presented ^^^^^
So someone who does not believe in your supernatural stuff is unintelligent? To have a high IQ, I must be a theist or believe in a spirit?
I thought deeply about that question and can come up with no other answer. I would have to change my beliefs, not my intelligence, to answer differently. I think it is rather unintelligent not to see that.
But even if I were someone who believed in any sort of supernatural forces, I could still imagine death as being in a state of non-functionality. There still doesn't have to be anything missing when I die. Even if there is a God, there still may be nothing after death but a pile of biodegradable junk. Reincarnation would be when some other creature makes use of my biomatter, not when my soul is places in some new baby being born.
Your answers are all "there is more to life than physical bla bla bla..." and mine are all "life is just a physical process, bla bla bla...." I'm not sure I can tell who is less intelligent from that. I'm surprised that someone so "enlightened" would make such unkind and unthoughtful comments though.
Bet then again, I've seem people say that the sky is blue in these threads and have someone call them an idiot for saying it. It's not a very original way to handle things.
Dave
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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sometimes you do not know the answer to the question and that can be a help in pursuing the answer
sometimes you learn that the question that you are asking doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially true when you know what the answer is afterwards
in science, like in climbing, there is always something harder to do, it never ends, so if you are on the forefront you get used to failing and perhaps if you're lucky, you succeed
to me, in this analogy, religion is sitting in El Cap meadow, without any practical understanding of climbing, and possessing belief in what is going on up there, how it should be done and what is possible
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cowpoke
climber
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Its also one of the biggest reasons I want to quit, right now. would be interested to hear more about this...is it trouble with parents?
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WBraun
climber
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rectorsquid, normally I wouldn't even waste my time with responding to your silly ignorant accusations.
But just for you ... :-)
You're the one who originally said:
"Asking such a questions showed a lot of ignorance in biology and was really a troll more than anything."
And ... nobody called you a idiot.
Nobody here ever claimed to be "enlightened".
That's your projections.
Your little bruised ego is doing the talking now .....
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WBraun
climber
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They will never stop clinging to their faith in their myths, no matter what facts we tell them.
Dr F making up sh!t as usual again .....
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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If this is so, why do we need a word like "life" to describe what, according to your beliefs, is merely an electro-chemical mechanism?
Because we use words to communicate ideas and a mere electro-chemical mechanism is still allowed a descriptive word. Also, there is a bit more to life than electro... stuff. It is merely my opinion that none of it is supernatural.
It's not really a belief to not believe in something. It is not a belief that we are electro-chemical mechanisms. It is proven fact. Are we more than that? To think so is belief. To think not is not. Otherwise you would call it a belief that I do not think that the El Cap is made of cheese.
Furthermore, what mechanism causes said "signals" to begin or end, how do these signals start and by what means do they stop?
That's a good question. Stopping a rock from rolling down a hill requires a bottom to the hill. Or maybe a bigger rock blocking the way. Do you suggest that chemicals and electricity do not follow similar rules? If you were to accept that there are chemical processes happening that are physical in nature than you would have to agree that physical blockages would stop those processes. Electricity can be stopped by simply cutting the "transmission line" of the signal. Cut off my hand and it stops grasping at straws. No further explanation of death is really needed. The machines in the factory break down and stop running.
As to how the signals start, I think that my mom was already running when I was grown inside of her. Think jumper-cables but way more complicated. Cells were nourished and they reproduced and some of them grew into nerves and there were already chemicals provided by mom to support those signals.
I don't know about the absolute origins of life. That's way more than my tiny brain can handle. Maybe it was God that created us originally.
But you know all of this. You and the other spiritualist people here are smart and know every argument I will make. I only make them to keep things from getting one-sided on the spiritual side.
Beyond having bad communications skills, I think that I'm fairly bright at times. I don't have all of the answers to questions about life but I'm also not going to ask a question on a forum where there are only two possible types of responses that I can anticipate ahead of time. Hence my troll comment. You know very well that the non-spiritual types will say exactly as I did and that the spiritual types will just go along with you but have no definitive answer.
Dave
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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They will never stop clinging to their faith in their myths, no matter what facts we tell them.
I will never stop clinging to my acceptance of pure science, no matter what questions it fails to answer.
None of us are different from each other except for what we have picked as our explanation for what cannot be answered. I can no more accept the spiritual explanation for things than WB or JL can accept the pure physical explanation. What seems obvious to me is not obvious to them and vice-versa.
I accept that I may very well be wrong about all of it. Maybe that's the one thing that separates some of us from the others.
I also accept that I am a complete dumbass for getting into this "dialog." It would be fun and challenging to discuss in person but things just come out wrong on the internet.
Dave
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WBraun
climber
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"but things just come out wrong on the internet."
Most intelligent answer ever.
:-)
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Reeotch
Trad climber
Kayenta, AZ
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cowpoke,
I've never had a parent complain about teaching of evolution. I knew a chemistry teacher who refused to teach it.
For me it is mostly all of the misguided efforts at "education reform" - high stakes testing, tracking, and more testing. Teachers are being increasingly more micro-managed. I just have a different vision of what education should be from the direction it is being forced to take here in the U.S.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Where have I ever put forth some supernatural explanation for anything? Don't lump me into that camp simply because a purely materialist explanation for things is sorely lacking as I am quick to point out. Nor do my questions represent a direct attack on "science." This is another case of all or nothing thinking - known in psychology as a "thought distortion." Science doesn't have to be "all right or all wrong."
I laugh at "scientisism," which has simply replaced fundamentalist, old time religion with quantifying, calling all other specious and ignorant forms of snake oil and superstition. But honest science, which recognizes that all modes have limitations, is nothing I have ever had issue with. Trying to pit me against all the serious and honest and hard working scientists out there is plain silly.
Mark, and others, when discussing "life," have ( as I have consistently observed) arguments based on what IMO are the lack of discriminating the qualitative differences between phenomenon. In the old "Mind" thread we saw how many people simply lacked the wherewithal to discriminate between their own direct experience and objective functioning, whereby the fear or excitement they might have felt up on El Capitan, say, was qualitatively the selfsame thing as the chemical processes they believed "created" their experience. Here, you end up with the totally untenable belief that the map (objective functiong) is the territory, or that the topo of the Nose on El Capitan is totally indistinguishable from physically climbing the route. In these terms, such a claim is absurd - and we can easily see why.
My questions about "life" are basically the same question. "Life," to the materialist, is qualitatively the selfsame thing as physical functioning. Ergo "life" is entirely mechanistic, or at any rate is "created," entirely, by an evolved bio-machine. How the bio-machine "created itself" out or inorganic matter is a forgone conclusion to materialist - the info is forthcoming. Just later. Then people can assemble life on their own, since life is no more than the sun of it's bio parts. Right? Just electrical charges in the nervous system. Remember Frankenstein and the lightning bolt. Basically the same thing, but more better.
Most people, when pressed, have some little sense that there quite possibly is more than objective functioning. But raised with a Biblical model as a cosmological backdrop, they can't imagine other options beyond straight quantifying (science), and outright supernaturalism.
Briefly moving off topic now - For most, the idea of a universal "intelligence" can only be imagined as some duffer with a gold robe who has the big-ass brain and who, by fiat, "creates" shite. When in fact most every wisdom tradition says this intelligence is totally impersonal and dimensionless, and in terms of material, cannot be said to exist at all. No videos. No DVDs. No sound tracks. No pics. No thing. But the most difficult aspect of this, is that Universal Intelligence has no inherent meaning. That, to the meat brain, is all but ungraspable.
But that's life.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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re: accountability and freewill
Now the part about "freewill" or "free will" that always gets ME roiled is when a scientist, even a well-meaning one, perhaps a philos or psychologist, or a journalist or nowadays a troll says something like...
if there's no such thing as freewill, people aren't responsible for their actions...
Well, the fact of the matter is... even if you're clockwork, you back up your car and roll over my foot, injure it and cause me pain, I'm going to blame you and hold you accountable.
At base, it's a jungle out there... of competing contestants... and all contestants in the end have to be held accountable. No getting around it.
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Well, the fact of the matter is... even if you're clockwork, you back up your car and roll over my foot, injure it and cause me pain, I'm going to blame you and hold you accountable.
What if the car did it on its own? You should definitely hold it accountable. Zap it with a cattle prod! If that does not help, maybe hit it a few times with a sledge hammer. If that does not fix the problem, give the car the death penalty. Take it to the junk yard and have it compressed. That will teach it.
Or, you could just put the parking brake on and go soak your foot in ice water, maybe be get it X-rayed to see if anything is broken. I don't think it is any different with people.
Meaning we spend so much time holding people accountable that we ignore simple solutions. No amount of accountability will make up for damage already done. Accountability does not tell us what specific mechanisms or what specific actions will prevent a problem from developing. It is just a generic fall back term that sounds important but means nothing. I think it is just a hold over or perhaps a foundation of all that other stuff you fight against HFCS.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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re: crime and treatment in a mechanistic nature
Interesting response. So if you were King of America how would handle the Hayes and Komisarjevskys of the world, you being a practical man?
Is not the "simple solution" to be accountable for your actions?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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So we go from idea to when in fact in the space of one sentence.
YES, BECAUSE FOR MANY FOLKS IN SAID TRADITIONS, THAT IMPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A MENTAL CONCOCTION BUT AN EXPERIENCE.
I take exception when science-oriented folk say 'the big bang happened...' like its a proven fact. I take exception to any person pretending an unsupported idea is a fact, in fact.
THE IMPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE MENTIONED IN COUNTLESS TRADITIONS CAN NEVER BE A FACT BECAUSE IT HAS NO MATERIAL OR QUANTIFIABLE "PROOF" (OR "SUPPORT") OF EXISTING. SO BY YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF "REAL," (REQUIRING QUANTIFIABLE PROOF), YOU ARE CORRECT.
UNLESS BY "SUPORT" YOU INCLUDE THINGS BEYOND QUANTIFYING, WHICH IS HARD TO IMAGINE.
JL
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Seems to me that if some action causes damage to society, then society has a right to try and correct it. When someone causes damage to society and they have the capability of correcting or making up for that damage, then we should focus on getting them to correct the damage as best they can.
In a lot of situations we should ask, what are the probabilities of this damage occurring again? Then we take various actions to try and reduce that probability. This means that we have to rationally look at the evidence from a sort of epidemiological point of view.
One problem that we face is that we want to find solutions to problems that match the emotional results of the problem. Since the car ran over your foot, you want to inflict as much pain on the car as it inflicted on your foot. Setting the hand brake does not seem like a very painful experience for the car, so it is a less emotionally satisfying solution to your painful foot. But, setting the hand brake is the primary solution for preventing the car from rolling in the future.
On the other hand if you don't know about parking brakes or the park position on the shifter for a car and it is rolling, then you can beat on it long enough and it will probably stop rolling eventually. Since we have such a poor understanding of human psychology, it is understandable that people do whatever they can to control each other, no matter how ineffective.
I guess this does not have anything to do with teaching evolution.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the consequences of a cosmology that is described as "The Big Bang" is consistent with observations and has predicted details of observations which have been made to observe those predicted details...
difficulties with said cosmology, ("The Big Bang"), which included the problem of fine tuning have lead to significant refinements of the cosmology, notably the inclusion of an inflationary phase in the putative expansion aftermath, have made the particular universe that results in such cosmologies likely rather than unlikely
further, an accounting of the distribution of light emitting matter and its motion have lead to further modifications to the cosmology to include a significant fraction of mass which does not radiate, but which makes up the majority of the matter in the universe
these are all consequences of taking the cosmology and pushing it to provide predictions of what we will observe when we build the detectors and observatory to observe them
further, these predictions have ramifications in other, desperately different regimes, which again entail predictions, experiments and observations which can be conducted in order to find the limits of validity of these theories, or to confirm the theories' predictions...
at the limits of validity, we will create new theory which explains those observations in contradiction with the old theories, provide understanding why the old theories were inadequate, and result in new theories with extended predictive capability
BUT THESE ARE NOT FACTS OR TRUTHS, THESE ARE MERELY THE PROCESS OF UNDERSTANDING AND ARE PROVISIONAL DON'T WRITE THEM IN STONE BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT STAND THE TEST OF TIME, THEY WILL CHANGE
NOT ONLY THAT BUT THE PEOPLE WHO PROFESS THESE THEORIES ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT THEY DON'T EXPLAIN EVERYTHING
HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY PUT ANY STOCK IN SUCH AN ENDEVOUR
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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re: crime and treatment in the absence of free will
Thanks for the reply, but Paul, the inquiry was...
"how would [Paul] handle the Hayes and Komisarjevskys of the world?"
...if he were King of America?
Not 400 years from now when, imaginatively, we might be able to solve the criminal's antisocial trait by releasing borg-like nanoprobes into the cortex (See Star Trek Voyager episode, Repentance, for more) to effect repairs or to improve upon shortcomings, but now, right now, in this century in need of practical solutions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repentance_%28Star_Trek:_Voyager%29
...and, btw, that was an interesting bait-and-switch you posted from (a) the conscious intelligent driver of the car to (b) the (driverless) car! Truly today's best straw man and red herring all rolled up into one, lol.
Regarding the driver's accountability, its nature and degree would of course depend on the circumstances, esp the driver's intention. But no matter the intention, the driver would have/should have accountability as the #1 problem solution even in a full-on, fully mechanistic universe, which was my starting point all along.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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When in fact every wisdom tradition says this intelligence is totally impersonal and dimensionless.
You're tilting hard in DMT's direction of an entertaining obfuscational ambiguity when you posit there is some broad pseudo-netherland between science and the supernatual you can inhabit and stretch out in like the intellectual equivalent of a just-right jacuzzi (a few more bubbles? perhaps some champagne?). Now I can understand and empathize with the intellectual distress which surely must arise at even the prospect of trying to label that comfortable purgatory, and I might even sympathize, except, no matter how you label it or not, it still looks like a pretty damn short plank from science to the supernatural to me.
And 'every wisdom tradition'? Man, that's a stretch under the best of circumstances. Humans have worshiped and deified an endless array of animate, inanimate, and imaginary entities throughout history in beliefs so strong an untold number of animals and people have been slaughtered in rituals to those beliefs. More untold millions have been killed for not sharing someone else's beliefs.
So yeah, if you crack open, distill, and very carefully filter the endless array of creative / nightmarish bullshit that has passed for religion down through history, then sure, you can arrive at some pearls of common 'wisdom'. But a "totally impersonal and dimensionless intelligence", hmmm - that there is some heavy, and some might say biased, reading between the lines under the very best of circumstances.
Seems to me you 'thou doth protest too much' on the materialistic front while dismissing the supernatural one and then languishingly exploit the vacuum in between for motives known only to you.
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