Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 05:43pm PT
|
We all understand clearly that many on this thread hope and pray that materialism will "explain" all of reality (JL)
Once again, the projection of desperation that must be felt by the author onto the rest of us. Moderation, John (Buddha).
Nice post, Ms Sullly!
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 05:52pm PT
|
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm. DT
Dylan Thomas on the agony of being apart rather than a part.
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 05:54pm PT
|
Really, what is it that you appreciate? Its consoling, reconciling quality? Its beauty, the sense of wonder it elicits in you? Or am I describing here the experience of good Catholics at mass?
Catholicism in particular has done a ripping good job of co-opting our response biases, substituting its lovely architecture and so on to evoke the sense of awe and wonder that nature serves up with no obligation. Then again, natives of areas with big mountains and such often could care less about the scenery. So just where those emotional reactions come from and what purpose they serve is the question. One thing for sure there are any number of two-bit preachers ready to turn them to their own ends.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 06:14pm PT
|
“Answers,” sure. Thousands of them. Millions of them. An answer for every being.
But the question was this:
It’s even questionable that there is anything at all
Your question.
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 06:20pm PT
|
The rub is there are some aspects of reality that you cannot "look" at and measure in the normal way.
Agreed, depending on what you mean by "normal way."
You are likely quite safe from having Macbeth explained at the molecular level.
Where do you get these ideas?
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 06:48pm PT
|
The Human Amygdala and the Induction and Experience of Fear
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210015083
Summary
Although clinical observations suggest that humans with amygdala damage have abnormal fear reactions and a reduced experience of fear [1, 2 and 3], these impressions have not been systematically investigated. To address this gap, we conducted a new study in a rare human patient, SM, who has focal bilateral amygdala lesions [4]. To provoke fear in SM, we exposed her to live snakes and spiders, took her on a tour of a haunted house, and showed her emotionally evocative films. On no occasion did SM exhibit fear, and she never endorsed feeling more than minimal levels of fear. Likewise, across a large battery of self-report questionnaires, 3 months of real-life experience sampling, and a life history replete with traumatic events, SM repeatedly demonstrated an absence of overt fear manifestations and an overall impoverished experience of fear. Despite her lack of fear, SM is able to exhibit other basic emotions and experience the respective feelings. The findings support the conclusion that the human amygdala plays a pivotal role in triggering a state of fear and that the absence of such a state precludes the experience of fear itself.
|
|
Tvash
climber
Seattle
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 07:07pm PT
|
The experience of this former Catholic at mass was a sore ass, sweaty soaked shirt, with any luck, a little nap. Not that I don't like Teach Your Children on a 12 string.
I appreciate nature for what it is, when it is.
That can vary a bit. You never know what might turn up.
The source of our awe is likely much older than our species, given that a dog enjoys an expansive view as much as I do.
We're wired to love our home.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 07:46pm PT
|
I appreciate nature for what it is, when it is.
Yes, and what is it exactly, and when is it?
The source of our awe is likely much older than our species, given that a dog enjoys an expansive view as much as I do.
We're wired to love our home.
It's good you can communicate so intimately with your animals, but what is that thing you call awe? How is your awe in the experience of nature any different from a religious experience? The power of such an experience lacks all practicality. And yet in it is the redolence of consolation. So sweet, so "religious."
We're wired to love our home explains little of the profundity and the ecstatic experience of the sublime which has little to do with one's home. Were you the one giving out cigars? Misplaced trust.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 07:54pm PT
|
Real time self-observation (presence) not fused to content is unlike any other phenomenon in the known universe. The only viable refutation to this is to simply say such a "thing" does not really exist.
Wait, which is it? One minute it's a 'no thing', now it's a 'phenomenon' - and not just any phenomenon, but one "unlike any other in the universe". Others here would have us believe it is 'the universe'. From where I sit the word 'phenomenon' doesn't exactly constitute a "report back", but then I suppose the [non] experience is simply too overwhelming even for masters of the word.
The rub is there are some aspects of reality that you cannot "look" at and measure in the normal way.
And now we're weighing and measuring 'no thing' - got to get myself a PhD in the metrics of no thing - and maybe explain to the folks in my business the hot new deal isn't 'big data', it's 'no data'.
The romantic movement and its worship of nature has permeated western culture to such a degree that it's almost impossible for its acolytes to recognize in themselves. Kind of like a smell you get used to.
The only "smell" here is your devotion to the notion human beings are somehow special. You've clearly had enough philosophy, maybe what would be in order now is some microbiology.
Next time you're in the Sierra and you're standing at the top of some peak or climb looking into prodigious space and you're plainly too moved to speak, ask yourself what is the source of this feeling?
And you think those feelings come from where? It's all the same with you guys, all self-obfuscatory woo, no reporting back. Life obviously just couldn't be worth living - and couldn't be lived 'morally' or ethically - without some form of guiding woo. My god we'd all just be animals without it...
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:00pm PT
|
"being just an animal" absolves you of any responsibility for your actions.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:09pm PT
|
^^^Good one TGT! but isn't that their mission!?
The source of our awe is likely much older than our species, given that a dog enjoys an expansive view as much as I do.
dogs don't see well. My dog barked at me when i put on a suit. He didnt know who i was till he smelled me. Hell they don't even see colors.
isn't Ur awe is inspired by being in a grandiose place that provokes your smallness.
maybe get out of your cubical more?
Come to JTree, it's aweinspirering.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:20pm PT
|
"being just an animal" absolves you of any responsibility for your actions.
In your delusional world.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:31pm PT
|
And where is the peer-reviewed article proving that gravity is "created" by matter?
Largo
ah, you maybe missed that 7th grade science class where they went over the "scientific method"
you know, where they say that science is about falsifying, not about proving a thing... so you are right, there is no peer reviewed article "proving" gravity is created by matter...
from Einstein's 1915 paper "Erklärung der Perihelbewegung des Merkur aus der allgemeinen Realtivitätstheorie"
"We place a point mass (the Sun) at the origin of the coordinate system. The gravitational field, which this mass point produces, can be calculated from these equations through successive approximations."
now of course, this is a description of the quantity he is about to calculate, the perihelion shift of Mercury's orbit, that had been observed (current value is 574.10±0.65 arcsec/century) but Newton says this should be 531.63 ±0.69 arcsec/century (also assuming the Sun's mass gives rise to a gravitational field as conveyed in the Universal Law of Gravity). This is inconsistent with expectation, we conclude that Newton was "wrong."
General Relativity calculates a correction term of: 42.98 ±0.04 which when added to the Newtonian expectation gives: 574.64±0.69, in agreement with the observation (within the uncertainties).
We then say that General Relativity (and it's assumptions) are consistent with observation.
IT'S NO A PROOF
but obviously we can push our theory to predict other things (like the correction to the clocks circling in orbit around the Earth that give you your GPS position), and we take the assumptions to be entirely workable.
Now we can also hypothesize other things, too, like some expansive "psi" field expands throughout the universe and our consciousness taps into that field in some unknown and unknowable way and provides us access to the "Big Book of Facts" from which we know how to do things and how to think about things.
Some of us (the scientist sausages) deceive ourselves into believing that we aren't connected to this, and make the error that the consistency of our theories is due to their correspondence with a quantitative system, a theory, which is verified by empirical observations, when what is really happening is that we know the answer coming in off the psi field in the first place.
So our game is jiggered in a way we don't know or don't recognize... of course we get it right. Sort of the ultimate "self-esteem" con game...
And the fact that we have constructed a scenario to account for the facts necessarily makes that scenario consistent with the observations...
...and we have no way to know what is right, does science do anything? or are we lead to the answer by peeking in the BBoFs via the psi field?
Game done, no need to continue... let's just be intuitive (i.e. pick up the psi field and go with that) and drop the pretense that we have to understand anything from a science point of view.
Better that we all spend our time writing and reading gossipy literature about people, their lives, loves and losses... isn't that what it's all about anyway?
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:39pm PT
|
Face it, 'no thing' is the only knowable thing in the universe.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 08:46pm PT
|
EDMUND: "You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea.
...
The peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on the beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see - and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, stumbling on toward no where, for no good reason!"
so what? you need to read it? you've never felt that way yourself? never experienced it yourself? or you just couldn't describe it that well? why would you need to?
or perhaps you just love playing with language and watching others do that, and admiring the beauty and being surprised by the inventiveness and taken in by the wit, or emoting with the pathos...
...and if that, perhaps you might glimpse at what I see in mathematics and physics. The only sorrow being that I can appreciate your passage and perhaps see what you see, but you can't mine.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 09:04pm PT
|
You big big mean lab coat sausage scientists are now picking on a poor little girl?
:-)
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 09:22pm PT
|
It seems that some (not all) big mean lab coat sausage scientists pick on anything female. Case in point, I used the term Joe Sixpack a while back and a certain lab coat here jumped all over me for that, accusing me of being a typical conservative getting all my news from Fox. A little later in the conversation, three different men used the same expression while the same lab coat was participating in the discussion, and not a word was said to any of them. Since I'm not conservative and I never watch Fox News I found that typically insulting.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 09:34pm PT
|
DrEd hits a homerun with two on, in the top of the eight. Tie game!
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 09:36pm PT
|
The rub is there are some aspects of reality that you cannot "look" at and measure in the normal way (JL)
Rub the lamp vigorously and the djinn will explain these aspects to your satisfaction.
Real time self-observation (presence) not fused to content is unlike any other phenomenon in the known universe (JL)
Once again, the level of absolute certainty of a true believer. No mysteries for John - all reduces to no physical extent, the God of No-Thing.
. . . we can also hypothesize other things, too, like some expansive "psi" field expands throughout the universe and our consciousness taps into that field . . . (Ed)
How would the psi field interact with the aether? No-thingness?
This takes us alarmingly close to Tegmark's mathematical universe, itself a fun bit of metaphysics.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Mar 30, 2015 - 09:46pm PT
|
Rub the lamp vigorously and the djinn will explain these aspects to your satisfaction.
Yes this is true.
But it must be the correct lamp and correctly chanted mantras.
Thus the scientific method remains intact .....
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!