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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 15, 2014 - 08:21am PT
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MH2: How do such matters [explanations of quantum physical reality] affect our day-to-day lives? The iPhone comes from our understanding of physics, whether for Good or Bad.
There is a division of labor. We rely upon authority of others. It’s a conspiracy. We are probably giving too much away.
Almost no one understands the quantum physics involved in a cell phone. Not really. When you get right down to it, almost no one understands anything. Not really. Heck, it’s questionable just how many people “understand” how crowdsourcing or social media (as simple as both would seem to be) actually work. Sure, we have theories, and we let those who spin theories about this thing or that thing do our worrying for us. We just accept what we’re told because it’s easier (cognitively), apparently credible (authority), and compelling (consensus).
On the other hand, there are so few things that we have direct experience in, and the few direct experiences that we have only come to us in subjective format. We may assimilate what others tell us about reality rationally and materially, but we live our lives subjectively (day-to-day or not).
Consider this mismatch between what we say we know (our beliefs) and what our experiences provide to us (in the rawest and most unelaborated way). Note they are not the same; they never are. It seems to me that after a while anyone would start to question narratives, theories, arguments, logic, etc. about the so-called reality they live in. They might start to question ANY interpretation as faulty, incomplete, inaccurate—a socially constructed illusion.
One more interesting intellectual question might be: why do people not admit the disjunction between experience and narratives? What makes people hold on so dearly and fiercely to the everyday common views of reality? Whatever THAT is, is stronger than the forces that bind the universe. Some of us would say that those ARE the forces that bind the universe.
Yeah, great. Where *could* anyone be without interpretations? Would that place even be a “being” place? (You might see that I’m starting to point to a notion of “non-being.”)
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 15, 2014 - 08:57am PT
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Randisi-
The Tibetan name says it all.
Yer tsa gun bu
Summer grass, winter worm
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 08:59am PT
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To keep it in perspective, a counterpoint to those who think science is "just" another ideology...
I love science!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 15, 2014 - 09:06am PT
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fructose, stop setting up windmills to tilt against.
I did watch both videos you recommended and I thought that Dawkins was remarkably and unusually polite for a change. I didn't feel angry at the Christian questioning him, just sad that he is a prisoner of such a narrow outlook and confined to one interpretation of one book when there is so much else out there.
As for 46, why on earth would I be looking to see what the score of people approving or not is?
But the real question is, why would you think that I would side with a Christian fundamentalist against evolution when I've been teaching evolution to undergraduates for 35 years?
Why would you think that? Why?
Talk about being a hopeless prisoner of sterotypes and prejudice??!!!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 09:23am PT
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Well, Jan, for starters, despite your 35 years, I don't think you've ever made the connection between (1) the evolution of life and (2) the evolution of chemistry.
Nor the connection between (a) the evolution of brains and (b) the evolution of minds.
'Tis strange.
unusually polite for a change
He's always been a gentleman, esp given the circumstances.
why on earth would I be looking
I don't know, to get a sense of where the public's at and how such topics might be evolving amongst humans all across the planet? If you're at all interested in such trends, cultural shifts? I am.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 09:24am PT
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lol
Doesn't HFCS know that no one here has any problem with science itself ever.
He creates problems from within his own self ......
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 09:32am PT
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Science never has a problem.
It's always perfect and exists eternally.
It's only the practitioner that gets into trouble with it .......
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 15, 2014 - 10:14am PT
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One thing I know is that I can only speak for myself (honestly) with regards to what I know or don't know.
I don't know about people who claim to speak for others in this regard. Ego? Adherence to strongly held beliefs without evidence?
The emotional needs behind such nonsense probably varies.
Werner reminds me of an ant lion. It does one thing and only one thing whenever the sand moves.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Dec 15, 2014 - 10:26am PT
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WBraun behaves like the guy in the background on the photo below often does, but often I get a feeling that he's really the guy in the foreground. Nothing wrong said about the guy in the foreground...
Just look at him empathically like this:
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 15, 2014 - 10:42am PT
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Dung beetles are very cool - they can navigate by the sun, moon, or stars if the former two aren't available.
i spent an afternoon watching them do their thing in a white rhino dung heap in SA - an expansive affair that can be 5 m or more across.
They are excellent flyers, but here's the thing - the can't land for sh#t. Hence, the nice, soft dung. It keeps them from exploding on impact. Watching them do their air traffic out-of-control thing is really entertaining.
White rhinos are pretty cool, too. The dung heaps mark their territorial boundaries. You often see rhino neighbors hanging out together - each just within their own territories.
Rhinos have to cross each others territories from time to time. There's a strict protocol for doing so. A formal greeting (where the guest rhino seeks permission to cross). If granted, the owner rhino escorts the guest rhino across his turf. If this protocol is not observed, things get ugly. 8000 lbs, 35 k/hr, 1 m long horns ugly.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 15, 2014 - 11:51am PT
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- the can't land for sh#t.
Ha! funny. Sounds like me and my drone
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 15, 2014 - 02:58pm PT
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Tell me if this doesn't hit the nail squarely on the head...
"Postmodernism, the school of 'thought' that proclaimed 'There are no truths, only interpretations' has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for 'conversations' in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster."
Dan Dennett
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When it comes to intellectual leadership in our time, the person who comes closest to Carl Sagan is, imo... Steven Pinker.
A taste...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUbVc7qVpg
"It's almost unfair when Steven Pinker is in a discussion where other speakers are involved. He exposes even his peers and other experts for their lack of clarity, insight, erudition and perspective. Every single time he speaks he crystallises what is clearly a deep knowledge of the topic at hand with astonishing authority yet always with calm humility and a motivation to elucidate for the lay person. Everyone else just sounds biased, ideological, narrow-minded or simply incapable of communicating what they understand to an audience. As frustrating as it is when anyone else speaks, including the moderator, it just shows how much of a towering intellectual Professor Pinker is."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAXUVUM-N00
It seems I never get tired of reading this one...
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?" -Snow
I'm such a push over for clear writing!
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 15, 2014 - 03:17pm PT
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Did anyone see the Mindfulness segment on 60 minutes last night. Might have been a re-run. I Thought it was fairly well done . Jon Cabet Zinn was highlighted and he has done some really good work of working with chronic pain with mindfulness.
It really touches on what is your relationship with your present situation and condition which has a strong emphasis in buddhism.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 15, 2014 - 03:36pm PT
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Mindfulness is arguably the most important thing a human being can learn.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:00pm PT
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A point particle (ideal particle[1] or point-like particle, often spelled pointlike particle) is an idealization of particles heavily used in physics. Its defining feature is that it lacks spatial extension: being zero-dimensional, it does not take up space
Idealization is the process by which scientific models assume facts about the phenomenon being modeled that are strictly false but make models easier to understand or solve
But you are right - it makes no difference in our everyday lives.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:06pm PT
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HFCS:
I don’t know what you know about it other than what you’ve heard other people say, but I believe Dennent’s characterization of postmodernism is deficient and over-simplified. It seems to be the same thing with you over and over throughout this thread. You make boasts and assessments without talking about specifics that would be observed within a field of study.
What have you read about postmodernism? If you’re really interested, I’d be happy to point you to a book.
As to “Mindfulness”:
I can imagine that this may cause some consternation among some folks I might seem to agree with, but mindfulness is NOT about having a full mind about a subject, activity, or orientation. It’s more about having an empty one. Secondly, it’s not exactly something that one learns (not really). It’s not a trick or a skill.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:23pm PT
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Secondly, it’s not exactly something that one learns (not really). It’s not a trick or a skill.
Cabot Zinn basically said the same thing on the interview. I think he said it was more like just being.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:33pm PT
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Mindfulness: You've either got it or you don't.
What utter bullsh#t.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:41pm PT
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Mindfulness must certainly be a Phenotype
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