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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:37am PT
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I know some pretty old hairless monkeys who continue to make the world a better place. Plan for that and all will be well. Age is something one adapts to - adaptation is what we hairless monkeys do.
I've also seen a glaring example of pitiful, graceless death, up close and personal. That fate was more choice than not, however.
For the record, Alpha, I never called Mike a buffoon. Just enjoying the slapstickiness of correlating having a PhD with mindfulness. Any data there we can graph?
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 16, 2014 - 11:11am PT
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John, my sense of this is that what you believe is that there really is solid and lasting "stuff" at the bottom of it all, and my friends, at least, insist that there is not.
Not at all, John. I have no idea what if anything is down there at those levels. But you seem fairly certain there is nothing. That may be. Or there may be something we haven't a clue about. (Your friends lost a little bit of credibility with me when one of them made that naive comment about topology some time back) What's important is devising a mathematical model that works, and not drifting into metaphysics . . . which doesn't.
Your quote about a falling object is of course correct. On occasion I went through the mathematical derivation for my calculus class both with and without air resistance. It's an entertaining exercise. In practice we do these idealizations all the time. Even in mathematics we drop or ignore terms that are insignificant with regard to some larger context (numerical analysis, e.g.)
The fact that Mike is a PhD should have little to no bearing on his meditative studies and enlightenment. And at the normal level of discourse on this thread - with the exception of occasional very technical commentary - should have little relevance.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 12:31pm PT
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Speaking of podcasts...
re: free will, rejection of libertarian free will, blame and shame as intuitions (perceptions or internal drives)
Cintune, eeyonkee, merry christmas...
thought at least one or two here might enjoy when there's time, lol...
http://verybadwizards.com/episodes/59
Sam Harris, Tammler and Dave mix it up on free will, the absence of "libertarian free will" (term's becoming popular now proportional to the nuanced thinking on the topic), responsibility, blame and shame in the absence of libertarian free will.
The really good stuff (the crux of the biscuit) starts at 1:17:30. Notable vignettes: 1 Evil Genius implants thoughts 2 DWI and hitting a child, breaking her leg 3 shooter w brain tumor 4 "Tumors all the way down."
I never heard of Tammler (philos) and Dave (psych) before but together with Harris, they're pretty good. Podcast shows where it's all heading, the thinking, that is, I think. "Provisional" of course on whether or not civilization endures. ;)
In essence, three learned guys - none of which accept libertarian free will - "What are we, robots?!" - mix it up over the pros and cons of this Enlightenment 2.0 Plus when it comes to blaming and shaming, being held accountable, what it all means and how it's likely to shake out all things considered.
PS, I should've said: blame and shame not only as social constructs but also as evolved mental intuitions.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 16, 2014 - 12:55pm PT
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John, I'm not certain about there being no physical bottom - at least I'm not certain from a scientific standpoint because I don't understand the physics well enough to really have an educated opinion. But I do trust my friends who insist that there is only void and energy potential beneath all the stuff and that this interpretation is not a convenience to more easily render predictions and numbers. From an experiential viewpoint, it makes little sense that there IS stuff supporting what we can detect with our physical bodies because all experiential and meditative paths that I have ever heard about all boil down to the ungraspable emptiness that is unborn and pre-stuff. I don't expect this to wash with those who have not tuckered themselves out in Zendos and so forth, but it makes so much sense to us that the idea of stuff supporting THIS ALL seems like an impossible stretch.
And the business of PhDs - I have a bunch of fancy degrees so I tend to respect anyone who has grinded out their time in grad school. It doesn't mean one is better than or smarter than, but it indicates a person has some intellectual discipline and probably studied under experts and can appreciate the learning process. That's basically all I have attached to degrees.
If it is true that there is no material bottom to anything, then this is the end of materialism as we know it and eventually people are going to have to start taking no-thingness seriously. Perhaps they already are out side the Zendo. I don't know. But if this fantastic meta level that we live in was not sourced by material, but rather by that which has no physical extent and takes up no appreciable space, then life itself in merely fantastic, it is miraculous.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 16, 2014 - 01:15pm PT
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degrees mean next to nothing in and of themselves.
the most mindful person i know has never meditated in the Eastern sense. The most effective public policy mover and shaker i know has a lowly bachelors. The most talented writer i know claims her literature degree was complete bullsh#t.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 16, 2014 - 02:04pm PT
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But I do trust my friends who insist that there is only void and energy potential beneath all the stuff and that this interpretation is not a convenience to more easily render predictions and numbers (JL)
Could be. I don't know how they can be so certain, but you and I are fish out of water here, and I wish Ed would pop in and say a few words. Even if a void (whatever that is) and "energy potential" is all there is down there I don't see how that connects with the meditative experience you talk about. Do you think that what you experience is the quantum void? It still sounds like metaphysics to me, but what do I know?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 16, 2014 - 03:00pm PT
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degrees mean next to nothing in and of themselves.
Yes, like water, food and shelter "in and of themselves" they mean nothing. They must of course be used.
Still waiting for the graphs and charts and other "scientific authentication" of above quote.
Seems a wholly romantic notion of education as the worthless vehicle of a corrupting civilization filled with fakery and class distinction, Rousseau's world where only the "noble savage" has virtue.
Perhaps those holders of meaningless degrees should be cast out into the world of manual labor, say Watsonville or someplace like that to pick fruit and become one with the people and at night passing the time with their little Red Books.
...a scientific solution to those elite degree mongers for sure.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 16, 2014 - 03:09pm PT
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Thanks fructose for the reference to the video, The End of the World As We Know It. It seems to me to be so much more worthwhile to look to the future than rehash the debates of the past.I think if we get enough people thinking in a new way about the future, the old thinking will just naturally drop away as the older generations pass.
I think I might assign that video as a project toward the end of my upcoming class on biological anthropology.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 16, 2014 - 04:16pm PT
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Dissing Watsonville? Really? Did you read the post?
I wasn't dissing Watsonville or farm labor I was being Ironic. I was making a vague comparison of Tvash's post (degrees are meaningless) with attitudes in China during the cultural revolution when intellectuals and teachers were made to work in the fields as a lesson as to what the real world was.
Sarcasm and Irony are an unwieldy knife in this environment.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 16, 2014 - 04:42pm PT
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I completely agree. Talking about or having degrees doesn’t mean much to me, either. Next folks will start talking about schools and pedigrees (“. . . and who was your chair?”). Ye Gods.
Learning is an inside job. It’s you; YOU do the learning—whatever it is that you think you can or do learn. Teaching is asking good questions, sheparding discussions, and caring about your students. The rest is unexplainable. In a classroom (and in work meetings) there are invisible energy exchanges going on. It’s mysterious. Socrates may have been a buffoon, but he was mighty clever. To me Socrates exposed how one grasps grasping.
I wasn’t kidding when I asked in the last post: what can be learned? We can only learn what can be known. But aren’t there things that cannot be known as “knowledge” per se (explainable, structured, concrete, codified)?
Secondly, I think if you look closely, you might see that “the what” of what you know (think you know) are approximations, not highly defined, detailed, and accurate knowledge. Approximations are useful all day long, but do you really want to call heuristics, rules of thumb, shortcuts “knowledge?” Do you really know what’s going on and what things are? (Pffftttttt!)
Third, look into your own mind and see how it is that knowledge gets learned. How about calculus? Teachers can explain calculus all day long to undergraduates and not make a dent. But when people “get it,” they just get it: direct apprehension. What is that? Who knows. It’s unexplainable. People have theories about how learning happens, but those are just provisional, “proven” by falsification, essentialist abstractions. But do people know? Not really.
Well, what DO they know? They know there is an “I.”. The rest . . . provisonal abstract approximations.
Ed and a few others here poo poo philosophy, as if it were now out of style or no good in our bourgeoise world. The postmodern movement in philosophy (which I’ve heard here is dead) showed that even non-philosophical philosophy could be very useful when it showed just how circular, empty, and hegemonic most everything “legitimate” is.
If one should learn anything at all, it should be that one should look, think, and feel for him or herself. If you have learned that, then you can leave school. You’re done with formal education.
BTW, there is only one thing that qualifies as “in and of itself.”
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 16, 2014 - 05:01pm PT
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Tis the dull knife that bends the potato.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 16, 2014 - 06:32pm PT
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^^^^^^^
Clever!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 16, 2014 - 07:59pm PT
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Well, what DO they know? They know there is an “I.”. The rest . . . provisonal abstract approximations.
In a way, this coincides;
genotype (G) + environment (E) + genotype & environment interactions (GE) → phenotype (P)
Someone said this is how Evolution learns.
woouldn't our learning characteristics derive out of Evolution? A plant has an "I" seperated from the rest of who's out there. Why else would it flower and throw out pollen? i'm sure we could learn something about learning from the Anglerfish!
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 16, 2014 - 08:58pm PT
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The postmodern movement in philosophy (which I’ve heard here is dead) showed that even non-philosophical philosophy could be very useful when it showed just how circular, empty, and hegemonic most everything “legitimate” is
What is "non-philosophical philosophy?"
I suppose the ambiguous expression "non-mathematical mathematics" might make some sort of sense in, say, topology, where there might be very little in the way of traditional computations, but this requires "mathematical" to be understood to be computational, or something like that, excluding topology as "mathematical". Maybe not. Seems like a silly digression. Meaningless flapdoodle.
Perhaps philosophy is different.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:26pm PT
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^^^good one!
i heard Science is a Philosophy. i'd like to hear the take on that one!? Does philosophy start, with facts finishing? Seems like a fine line between, Predicting and Philosophy? Predicting has math. While philosophy has common sense and imagination..
Was the Atom bomb a philosophy until it blew somebody up?
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:47pm PT
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From mathematician
Zen Master Judy Roitman 本慧禅师: What have you learned from people who practice other faiths?
I was born and raised a Jew and still practice Judaism. I have been practicing Buddhism for over 30 years. My husband was raised Catholic, and his mother, who lived with us for several wonderful years, was devoutly Catholic. I have friends from many religions.
What I have learned is that, while the words and ideas and opinions and practices can differ radically, the deep message is the same: our small sense of ego is not what it's about; the universe is huge, and we are not separate from it; our actions have consequences, and we must take our responsibilities to other beings seriously. And I've learned that whatever practice you do, you have to do it faithfully.
Reading about it and talking about it and writing about it and thinking about it are only tools, the finger pointing at the moon. Because it's not about ideas. It's about direct contact - with God or with the absolute, whatever you want to call it, and especially with other people. All religious discourse points us in that direction. But instead of going where we're directed, we'd rather argue about the color of the road signs.
In Buddhism we say that there are 84,000 expedient means. This means that a practice that fits one person doesn't fit another. But I feel a kinship with everyone I meet who has a serious practice, even though I recognize that many of them, caught up in exclusionary ideology, do not feel a kinship with me.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 11:04pm PT
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The greatest truths in "Life" are never revealed to the unstudied masses ......
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 16, 2014 - 11:18pm PT
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Duck:
The interpretations are endless on that one.
I’d say that studying is applying your self to development, to seeing who and what you are.
In a broad sense, we are all the masses. We are caught (most of us) in a way of being and seeing. We are among others in the same stage or structure of consciousness. We are where we are. This is as far as we’ve gotten. But where we have gotten (ha ha) is as far as we ever needed to go. Ha-ha.
You have too damned many difficult words here: greatest, truths, Life, revealed, unstudied, masses—and the goddamned ellipses!
What a joke.
Keep smoking.
You're a troll.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 11:24pm PT
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It's a good one :-)
You knee jerked it instead of groking it for many years or lifetimes .....
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