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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 29, 2015 - 12:23pm PT
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so many words,
so few references...
...I'm sure you're not just making this up based on your own experiences, with a sprinkling of "book learning" spicing the top.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Nov 29, 2015 - 12:28pm PT
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Understanding a living thing in terms of its mechanisms - or its machinery of life - is diminishing? Diminishing to wonder and potential? Diminishing to creation and decency? Diminishing to what else?
Do I have that right, Paul?
I feels sorry for people with this attitude.
But the world knows there are many (umpteen millions) who do not share in this attitude.
I've said it for years... When it's not about facts, it's about attitude.
"Attitude is everything."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 29, 2015 - 12:29pm PT
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3.7 billion years of life on the planet, and Paul, our "crowner of creation" worries about having "nobility" in death... a very common occurrence, it would seem, and the antipode of birth.
And in that cycle of birth and death, what a great 3.7 billion years it's been... even from our 4 million year perspective of it, and probably a lot less if we throw in the estimates of when We "became" conscious, and certainly a whole lot less counting the time when we could even make such a statement.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 29, 2015 - 12:41pm PT
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3.7 billion years of life on the planet, and Paul, our "crowner of creation" worries about having "nobility" in death... a very common occurrence, it would seem, and the antipode of birth.
Far from worried. Death is the spice of existence and we are lucky enough to anticipate its inevitable moment, that "distinguished thing" that we act intensely in the face of and in that, a declaration against nihilism, we become noble. The common nature of death and our response is exactly the point.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Nov 29, 2015 - 01:26pm PT
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a non-pathological mind
I wonder what that is. I mean how reality defines it. Maybe how evolution defines it. Maybe even how evolution defined it before the pathological mutations through which it was created occurred.
If we work at it hard enough, we can find a way to define it as "my mind." It's worked so far. I'm glad that evolution didn't dump it in the "pathological mind" bin, the way our non-pathological minds want to do.
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Jim Clipper
climber
from: forests to tree farms
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Nov 29, 2015 - 01:50pm PT
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Mr. H
You may appreciate this. Google "conservation of Hox genes". In school, we learned of one called Tinman. Fruit flies and humans share similar DNA sequences that regulate heart development.
Instead of what is mind, maybe a more approachable question is, "What kind of a mind do apes, and other organisms have?" Why our self importance? :) Because it works/worked?
I haven't been following this thread, but has it turned towards group selection theory?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 29, 2015 - 02:32pm PT
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and certainly a whole lot less counting the time when we could even make such a statement.
yeah isn't that somethin? and here today we can actually argue whether we're causing global climate change, or not. and even moreso, exaggerate and even lie about it. Funny that the millions of Buffalo's since the 1700's haven't evolved a way to combat humans to anchor their sustainability. But then again maybe their drop in numbers is their conscious way of dropping the co2's?!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 29, 2015 - 02:37pm PT
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Death is the spice of existence and we are lucky enough to anticipate its inevitable moment, that "distinguished thing" that we act intensely in the face of and in that, a declaration against nihilism, we become noble.
Some great posts Paul!
speaking of which, where's MikeL been???
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Nov 29, 2015 - 02:51pm PT
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The common nature of death and our response is exactly the point.
Aha. You appear to be a biologist after all.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 29, 2015 - 03:10pm PT
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Death is the spice of existence and we are lucky enough to anticipate its inevitable moment, that "distinguished thing" that we act intensely in the face of and in that, a declaration against nihilism, we become noble
This is another beautifully-worded sentence that leaves me a bit puzzled.
Probably just me. I'm old.
What Ed is saying here, quite mistakenly, is that mind, itself, IS biology
I flamed out on this post . . . way too long.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 29, 2015 - 03:35pm PT
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, is that mind, itself, IS biology
true dat. Biology is a lesson on life. prolly ain't much biology on the moon or mars!?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 29, 2015 - 06:01pm PT
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Sight reading by definition is an exercise in paying attention to two things.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 29, 2015 - 06:37pm PT
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That development of an anticipatory capability / behavior meant surviving in an ecosystem was no longer a simply a matter of chance, an organism could now actively participate in its fate. That anticipatory response probably started out in a cell with the requisite sensory/motility pairing being able to move towards better chemical nutrient resources. However, once the ability to consume another living organism was developed in combination with a sensory / motility pairing then all bets were off, hunting made its first appearance on the planet and the arms race was on.
Every word of this is befuddled with assumations!
"anticipatory capability"?
"matter of chance"?
"actively participate in it's fate"?? [how would it know there is a fate?]
"better chemical nutrient resources"?? [how would it know good from gooder?]
"once the ability to consume another living organism was developed in combination with a sensory / motility pairing" And how do you see this taking place without consciousness?
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 29, 2015 - 06:43pm PT
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That anticipatory response probably started
Right there with the word "probably" you can see them guessing and projecting their cluelessness ...
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Nov 29, 2015 - 07:01pm PT
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Quack Quack.
That's scientism for ya?!
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 30, 2015 - 01:07am PT
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"anticipatory capability"?
Is there some comprehension problem? Last I checked, hunting and stalking requires the ability to anticipate, or do you think god is tipping predators off for when and where to go in order to take prey?
"matter of chance"?
Yep, before there were sensory and motile capabilities bacteria had no ability to do anything but exist where chance came into existence. This one is more reasoning than comprehension.
"actively participate in it's fate"?
Well, if you have no senses and no motility you're pretty much passively stuck where you are. Again, reasoning, not rocket science.
"better chemical nutrient resources"?
How do you tell the difference between fresh and fetid food? The label? Or one or more of your senses? You really seem to be struggling here.
"once the ability to consume another living organism was developed in combination with a sensory / motility pairing" And how do you see this taking place without consciousness?
Last I checked, bacteria and protozoa exhibit behavior, but I wouldn't consider that quite rising to the level of consciousness as we know it.
Right there with the word "probably" you can see them guessing and projecting their cluelessness ...
Well, I wasn't there so I can only make an educated guess. No doubt that's inferior to the certainty of faith regardless of the fact there are no facts associated with it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 30, 2015 - 08:44am PT
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what an interesting description in Wiki (maybe sycorax will skewer me for my poor research skilz, interestingly, there is no single entry for this at SEP, http://plato.stanford.edu/search/search?page=2&query=nihilism&prepend=None )
Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ.ɨlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.ɨlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of belief in one or more reputedly meaningful aspects of life. The Greek philosopher and Sophist, Gorgias (ca. 485 BC–380 BC), is perhaps the first to consider the Nihilistic belief. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.[1] Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism can also take epistemological or ontological/metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist.
I find this interesting because it mixes a lot of the discussants' ideas here...
I, personally might be sympathetic to the idea that "life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value" but I am not to the idea that "morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived" believing instead that our behaviors have an evolutionary aspect and that the constraints on acceptable behaviors are social constructions that have deep evolutionary origins.
But interestingly, there are those here that seem to espouse that " in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or that reality does not actually exist" which encompasses many of the objections to a scientific examination of the ideas that are the subject of this thread, in particular, "mind."
Oddly, this article referencing nihilism does come up at SEP:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/
which is an interesting historic view of our apparently favorite hobby horse, "nothing."
And it even has references...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Nov 30, 2015 - 10:54am PT
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Philosophers can write page after page about anything . . . even nothing.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Nov 30, 2015 - 11:27am PT
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I'll just leave this here, shall I?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Nov 30, 2015 - 02:20pm PT
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vI, personally might be sympathetic to the idea that "life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value" but I am not to the idea that "morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived" believing instead that our behaviors have an evolutionary aspect and that the constraints on acceptable behaviors are social constructions that have deep evolutionary origins.
The real paradigm of evolution is that a mutation is only successful if it is benign or contributes to the survival and reproduction of the individual or the group. Life feeds upon life, the Uroboros slithering along, living by creating death, devouring itself in a relentless effort to be. Nature is the great predator of itself, master of disguise and deceit for the sake of successfully devouring the other. I don't see much morality there.
The idea that morality is a product of evolutionary need might say one of two things:
A. morality is an inherent product of life and therefore a component of the universe itself and/or...
B. Human morality has somehow risen above the strict, often brutal dictates of evolution to a separate plane of social relationship concerned with virtue rather than survival.
The great journey of human morality from Yahweh to Socrates to Aquinas to Kant rises far above the simple demands of evolutionary social need into a realm of complexity in which evolutionary demands or needs are often abandoned for the sake of what is perceived as a greater good. What is that greater good?
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