Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2015 - 04:06pm PT
|
Metaphors work because they put two unlike things together, and in doing so transfer properties of one onto the other. (Think Venn diagrams.) (MikeL)
Venn diagrams?
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2015 - 04:33pm PT
|
Yes,yes...diagramme le Venn
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2015 - 09:50am PT
|
Jgill: Venn diagrams?
Each circle would represent the complete list of attributes of a concept or domain. (Forget that can’t really be fully articulated.) Where the circles intersect would indicate the attributes that would be shared between the base and the target domain / concept. However, the logic for the mapping is somewhat non-Boolean (see, Zadeh’s work on “fuzzy logic”), so seemingly inappropriate attributes can get mapped from a base domain to a target domain.
At one of my conferences on a business issue, I might see a cartooned poster of a man in rolled-up shirt sleeves planting a flag at the top of a mountain peak. The metaphor says that some facet of business is like climbing. Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s perhaps enlightening in some ways, but there are many places where the metaphor is misleading or even dangerous.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Sep 21, 2015 - 11:59am PT
|
OK. I've used Venn diagrams in math of course, but I've never thought of them used in this way.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2015 - 11:06am PT
|
The Non-Reductive aspect of “Mind”
One of our most intuitive, natural born insights is that the quality of our personal experience is closely associated with our biology. Run out of water on a big wall, say, and you’ll know, without a shadow of doubt, when your body is denied the basics, you will sell your mother’s soul to get them NOW.
For a number of psychological reasons - some having to do object constancy and the fact that we all came from, or were “made” by our parents - we naturally believe that our biology influences if not largely creates our experience. Again, drink a few beers or hit your thumb with a hammer to know this belief has legs.
And so as we grow up, the line, the qualitative difference between experience and our bodies get blurred. Most of us eventually come to believe that the agency, the “I,” the me with the name and the memory, experiencing the people, places, things and phenomenon (our personal “content”) of the world is a real entity, and that our subjective content is “ours.” We also come to believe that in a fundamental way, content is who we are – especially regarding what we can do, in terms of aptitude and capacity.
A person experiencing excellent capacity with the piano IS a musician, and the girl who can bend the soccer ball into the net from 40 meters out IS the center forward. Or we objectify what we do and declare THAT is what and who we are. A human doer doing (fill in the blank). What else “are” we but what we do and what content (people, places, things and phenomenon) passes through our consciousness?
But what happens when we slow down, shut up, and stop trying to label or evaluate our experience – including all the objects "out there” – and spend a few hours being with our experience, for the moment letting go, so far as we can, of all our appraisals, dogma, Gods, beliefs, convictions, points of view, perspectives, and so forth?
The first thing we might notice is that we have a private inner life that is special – NOT meaning we are superior to this or that, but rather this inner life, this subjectivity, is particular to a specific person or thing. We have our own special way of perceiving, and special features of our thinking. In other words, we have certain qualities etc. we believe that make us who we are, and that we as subjects have a discrete and direct experiential life in which those qualities play out, and a deeply and specifically personal sense of the texture, tone and content of that experience.
In brief, in addition to our bodies (our biology), we have a specific SUBJECTIVE reality that permeates every aspect of being you or being me. And that reality is subjectively and directly known ONLY to me. I can put words to aspects of my subjective experience, and outside agencies can to some degree measure (test) what I do and the way I process information, but my discrete subjective experience describes a psychological law: the experiential process and reality of an individual’s subjective life is directly knowable only to the subject. We might be able to measure certain objective functions like heart beat and temperature and various other biological markers, but the actual subjective world of any individual, their true real-time experience, is directly known and experienced only by the host or subject him/herself.
More later...
JL
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Sep 29, 2015 - 01:44pm PT
|
(Ugh.) There are theories offered in that writing, Cintune, and they are all highly speculative. There are many others available, too . . . perhaps an unlimited number.
Evolution may not always proceed in what would seem to be a logical and orderly fashion. Oddities may emerge, with essentially no explanation that we can imagine.
What do you get with an imagination imaging what could be imagined? That is what consciousness could be.
It’s been suggested by some Masters is that Reality IS consciousness discovering itself. What that might be could be similar to what a dream is for you. In a dream, everything is One, connected, seemingly not quite completely or accurately describable, fluid, spontaneous, open-ended, not quite concrete . . . with all sorts of operating theories available for speculation.
Perhaps we’re in the wrong thread. Here we are bordering on “Science vs. Religion.” (Hey, wait a minute. . . isn’t that a deja vu?)
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Sep 29, 2015 - 01:58pm PT
|
Okay, whatever Mike. "Masters." Ugh².
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Sep 29, 2015 - 08:06pm PT
|
It’s been suggested by some Masters is that Reality IS consciousness discovering itself.
Well, sure.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Sep 30, 2015 - 09:06am PT
|
Cintune: "Masters." Ugh².
What? You’d rather they have Ph.D.s? Nobel prizes? Stipends? Followers? Adherents? Published papers?
One more time, how would you suggest validating wisdom? What would be your criteria? Consensus? That which is deemed “productive” or “useful?”
|
|
PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
|
|
|
Sep 30, 2015 - 12:31pm PT
|
Cintune: "Masters." Ugh².
If you don't don't know the system that "masters" have to go through to be designated as a master I can understand your "Ugh"
Meditators are alot like climbers in that you have to do a lot of climbing/meditation to really get it. Dirtbags do alot of climbing. So think of Masters as the dirtbags of meditation that are willing to share their experience so you can try it out. "masters" have typically done many 30 plus even 100 day plus meditation retreats and mentored with other masters for 10 plus years before they are designated to teach. even then they are typically on probation as a teacher for the 3 to 5 years before they are designated a master.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Sep 30, 2015 - 01:02pm PT
|
Hey, Cintune, those were real questions.
What is wisdom? How would one validate it?
Be well.
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Sep 30, 2015 - 01:46pm PT
|
Wisdom? A nebulous concept. Validated by consensus, or sometimes imposed through intimidation.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Sep 30, 2015 - 10:48pm PT
|
How come most of us don't know what would make us happy? I don't think animals have those dilemmas.
Your speaking for yourself and yours, I guess?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
What you see is what you are.
Look at any passion or obsession, for example. This can be difficult at first because both are so engrossing. With practice, you get glimpses of what they are, more and more with time. Passions or obsessions seem to come in two parts. One part is interpretation or the content of the passion or obsession. That’s what you think IS the passion or the obsession. But there is a second part if you pay close attention. The second part is pure emotion accompanying the interpretation—raw energy. If you can see these two parts, you can look at the interpretation and simply see it as an interpretation alone: “X is wrong”; “Y is bad”; “Z is terrific” “A is a B.” If you have had some practice at looking at thoughts *as* thoughts alone (this is where meditation might come in), you can see that thoughts just come and go, that they don’t really reside anywhere you can put your finger on. Thoughts are evanescent. So, you just see thoughts just as content. When you see them so, thoughts have a tendency (with practice) to fall away or disappear (ok, maybe only temporarily).
Well, then what? Well, then you can ride the energy, the emotion, like you would ride a wave in the ocean (without the interpretation). You can surf your feelings.
Look at your feelings. Even the so-called bad or ugly ones. If you can drop the interpretations, you can see that all emotions are remarkable, amazing energy flows. You can also note why you fall into and stay in them as you do or as you want to. When you get angry or sad or experience sexual feelings (let’s say), you find yourself wanting to stay in them. Why? Getting plugged-into those energies *is* life at its fullest, whether you are topping out on El-cap, seeing a child born, or getting into one of those horrible fights with people you love. Looking even more closely, you might come to see that all of life is simply energy flows, that there’s nothing but energy flows. Everything is an energy flow, and you can see that, and experience it. That is experience; that is what you are.
Mind is a placeholder for "experience."
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
Why is it that failed academic philosophers seem to go disproportionately into computer programming?
Is this true?
All failed academic philosophers or analytic philosophers?
Even at my age I keep learning things on this forum!
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
I have done quite a bit of mathematical programming in BASIC, avoiding high level laguages like Mathematica in order to be able to create and design at a relatively fundamental level. It's hard for me to imagine that "failures" end up "programming." I find the process intellectually challenging and rewarding. Perhaps when comments like this are made they refer to what used to be called "coders" or other workers operating at at more mechanical level.
As readers may recall, John Nash pulled himself out of schizophrenia by programming for colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Oh wait . . . maybe analytical philosophers are schizophrenic!
;>)
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
It would be interesting to hear what a professional philosopher has to say about these comments. However, if many suffer from Asperger's that is unlikely. I seem to recall sycorax's father was an academic philosopher, so she might have an opinion.
Mathematicians who fail to get a tenure appointment might go into programming at a high rate, but that might be expected. On the other hand failed physicists have done remarkable things for stock trading.
;>)
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
I’ve been looking at my passions and obsessions recently. Once I’ve notice one in my sittings (they happen all the f*cking time!), I disentangle the interpretations from the energy flows, and I think I see that every energy flow has its own flavor. The energy flow of determination tastes different than anger, or exacerbation, as does frustration, as incredulity, and of course as does sexual energy--from joy, love, care, compassion, surprise, sadness, etc. As many as I witness. How can that be?
For a few moments, I surf those feelings. It is like riding a wave. I am propelled, I feel the energy around me, in my hair so to speak, it is pure exhilaration. I seem to be a matrix of feelings / energies at all times. Some are more prominent than others perhaps because I am paying attention to them. I’ve highlighted them.
My entire life is a meditation. Even the meditation, itself.
I’m some sort of like an onion. I may smell that way, but I taste good when sautéed.
Be well.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!