A little over my head the whole thing except for the very amusing line:
"Any number of such people are found in the sandal-shod organic trail-mix crowd, the sort who willingly live in Ithaca, NY, people always ready to recommend the latest restrictive diet, like eating only chakra-adjusted matched-color wild vegetables."
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I can relate, having lived in Ithaca where I attended a now disgraced Ivy located there.
We used to shave bits of it and wrap them in a large tangle of toilet paper and then flush them.
School plumbing is always cheap so the piping is always directly connected to a dozen nearby toilet stalls ... the blowback carnage was vastly amusing to our adolescent minds.
I threw a large amount of potassium metal (Weighted bag) behind a MIT building parking lot with standing water. Unknown to me there was a tree branch that was floating/hovering horizontal to the surface. The tree caught on fire, resulting in the Cambridge fire department being summoned…
Quantum physics is moving towards a view of the world that accepts the Numinous as the foundation of the cosmic order. Quantum Physics is more than physics: it is a new form of mysticism, which suggests the interconnectedness of all things and beings and the connection of our minds with a cosmic mind.
Relying on chance alone reduces any individual to "The Point" in Abbott's "Flatland".
Materialism defies the existence of both Logic and Reason, leaving one at best with Perception.
But, if Perception is only dependent upon true-but-random chemical processes, that also leaves one not knowing if the perception is of something real, or just random firings of synapses that fabricate impressions in the brain.
I am generally against panpsychism and panentheism and pantheism. I'm also against the conclusion and/or premise that "all is one." All these doctrines I have mentioned start by denying personality or personhood. That is to say, they don't have to explain separation because they deny separation.
Definitions:
1. panpsychism is the doctrine that every body has a mind or is a mind.
2. pantheism is the doctrine that everything is a god.
3. panenthesim (pan-en-theism) is the doctrine that god is distributed in all things, and each things has an infinite creative force.
Panentheism also assumes that god is equal to Nature, or equal to the Universe, or equal to the totality of what exists. It follows that such a god is not a person that is different from the effects caused by that person.
It's quite unsurprising that the conclusions of these doctrines simply circle back to the starting point. There is no way to incorporate anything to these doctrines, and they produce nothing.
I'm not much a Buddhist, sorry.
However, I like Buddhists much better than evolutionists and materialists. The former do not deny logic, they just deny existence. I can live with that! But the latter deny logic, then deny they deny logic, and then they deny that the denied that they deny logic, and so on and so forth, spiraling all the way down until they metamorphosize into a starfish.
I'm still not buying into quantum physics. Alchemy is better thought out.
I like a lot the quote by Fulton Sheen by the end. How scientists and philosophers lost their way, step by step, since the late 1800s until 1945 is a topic that I like to explore.
And even though Democritus may be wrong, so wrong that he may have not existed at all, it's very exciting to consider how humans can invent so many useful things using the wrong theory. Truly amazing.
While I strongly endorse the postulate of a cosmic mind, sometimes the route to its discovery is tortuous, winding its way down and back up blind alleys.
Invoking inexplicable “quantum effects” as the uber-explanation for the unexplained does, however, become a little tedious.
Max Planck: “I consider consciousness as fundamental, and matter as a derivative of consciousness. We cannot go beyond consciousness. Everything we talk about, everything we consider as existing, requires consciousness.”
It's sad that economists never learned this.
I keep trying to tell them to stop jabbering about "natural resources" (by which they mean various rocks) when the most fundamental natural resources is the human mind, without which uranium isn't even a rock (because that's our word concept). And yet they care little for these resources, routinely advocating for the slaughter of millions of them unborn every year, and referring to them as "units of labour".
“Faggin accepts only one miracle, which is creation itself. He doesn’t explain it, and never mentions the G-word.” The lengths to which scientists will go to avoid invoking a Creator is remarkable to behold. Even after admitting there is at least one miracle, Faggin still can’t do it. Ridiculous.
The point of consciousness, perhaps is that it cannot be “figured out”. It’s too advantageous/favorable to human life to stay ambiguous, at best. At worst, that pesky toy named AI could drive us nuts…question our own flesh and blood materialism. Ok, I haven’t had my third cup of coffee yet…
How fitting, just yesterday I was introduced to the thoughts of Stuart Kauffman and I am looking forward to digging into his writing.
The one problem I see with this is that it is a hugely anthropocentric (spiritually if not physically) view of the universe, which neatly ties to our place in the universe under Judeo-Christianity because we were formed in God's image. It seems to veer perilously to the universe exists because we think it into existence (or God did so, and our access is via that). That makes "emergence" seem more like hand-waving? Oh, the form already existed, it was just waiting to be instantiated is hand-waving just as much.
We didn't have the tools of science to create explanations for thousands of years; we've barely had them for four centuries, yet we humans have never been unable to create explanations for what we observed but could not understand. Sometimes one wonders if we've made any real progress (outside the obvious material realm).
Michael Behe did something similar in the field of biology. The concept of irreducible complexity was used to argue against pure materialism and for intelligent design. His point being that Darwin posited his theory from the simplistic view that the cell was the basic building block of life forms and thus could be rearranged with relative ease. "Darwins Black Box" Worth a read.
“Remember that you don’t have to know _how_ something works, only _that_ it works.” Oh, you don’t? Quick, someone call Royal Raymond Rife, Wilhelm Reich, and Antoine Prioré and tell them to come back and start selling their inventions again!
A little over my head the whole thing except for the very amusing line:
"Any number of such people are found in the sandal-shod organic trail-mix crowd, the sort who willingly live in Ithaca, NY, people always ready to recommend the latest restrictive diet, like eating only chakra-adjusted matched-color wild vegetables."
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I can relate, having lived in Ithaca where I attended a now disgraced Ivy located there.
tucoschild.substack.com
I was there five years and know these people well.
I did a 5 year stint as well. Luckily it was in the pre-woke days which offset much of the hippy dippy local color.
We used to throw sodium and potassium metal into Beebe Lake for kicks. I remember those days fondly.
TC
We used to shave bits of it and wrap them in a large tangle of toilet paper and then flush them.
School plumbing is always cheap so the piping is always directly connected to a dozen nearby toilet stalls ... the blowback carnage was vastly amusing to our adolescent minds.
I threw a large amount of potassium metal (Weighted bag) behind a MIT building parking lot with standing water. Unknown to me there was a tree branch that was floating/hovering horizontal to the surface. The tree caught on fire, resulting in the Cambridge fire department being summoned…
Classic, I am sure we would have had some great fun (trouble) back in the day!
I hope that you escaped any issues post that conflag.
May I ask you what you were up to there? A best buddy got his chem degree there.
TC
Yes, I was able to leave but observe the area without punishment.
I was a course 18, 8, 6, and 2 for undergraduate and course 3 and 18 for graduate.
I was there in the mid to late 1990s.
Quantum physics is moving towards a view of the world that accepts the Numinous as the foundation of the cosmic order. Quantum Physics is more than physics: it is a new form of mysticism, which suggests the interconnectedness of all things and beings and the connection of our minds with a cosmic mind.
Relying on chance alone reduces any individual to "The Point" in Abbott's "Flatland".
Materialism defies the existence of both Logic and Reason, leaving one at best with Perception.
But, if Perception is only dependent upon true-but-random chemical processes, that also leaves one not knowing if the perception is of something real, or just random firings of synapses that fabricate impressions in the brain.
This is supremely interesting. Thank you.
I am generally against panpsychism and panentheism and pantheism. I'm also against the conclusion and/or premise that "all is one." All these doctrines I have mentioned start by denying personality or personhood. That is to say, they don't have to explain separation because they deny separation.
Definitions:
1. panpsychism is the doctrine that every body has a mind or is a mind.
2. pantheism is the doctrine that everything is a god.
3. panenthesim (pan-en-theism) is the doctrine that god is distributed in all things, and each things has an infinite creative force.
Panentheism also assumes that god is equal to Nature, or equal to the Universe, or equal to the totality of what exists. It follows that such a god is not a person that is different from the effects caused by that person.
It's quite unsurprising that the conclusions of these doctrines simply circle back to the starting point. There is no way to incorporate anything to these doctrines, and they produce nothing.
I'm not much a Buddhist, sorry.
However, I like Buddhists much better than evolutionists and materialists. The former do not deny logic, they just deny existence. I can live with that! But the latter deny logic, then deny they deny logic, and then they deny that the denied that they deny logic, and so on and so forth, spiraling all the way down until they metamorphosize into a starfish.
I'm still not buying into quantum physics. Alchemy is better thought out.
I like a lot the quote by Fulton Sheen by the end. How scientists and philosophers lost their way, step by step, since the late 1800s until 1945 is a topic that I like to explore.
And even though Democritus may be wrong, so wrong that he may have not existed at all, it's very exciting to consider how humans can invent so many useful things using the wrong theory. Truly amazing.
Sheen's entire book is worth reading.
Yes please go through “Hard Problem and Free Will: an information-theoretical approach“. Would love to get a take on that.
While I strongly endorse the postulate of a cosmic mind, sometimes the route to its discovery is tortuous, winding its way down and back up blind alleys.
Invoking inexplicable “quantum effects” as the uber-explanation for the unexplained does, however, become a little tedious.
Fulton Sheen's caution should be taken to heart.
We do not understand how consciousness works.
We do not understand how quantum mechanics works.
That commonality does not necessarily imply a deep connection between the two.
Max Planck: “I consider consciousness as fundamental, and matter as a derivative of consciousness. We cannot go beyond consciousness. Everything we talk about, everything we consider as existing, requires consciousness.”
It's sad that economists never learned this.
I keep trying to tell them to stop jabbering about "natural resources" (by which they mean various rocks) when the most fundamental natural resources is the human mind, without which uranium isn't even a rock (because that's our word concept). And yet they care little for these resources, routinely advocating for the slaughter of millions of them unborn every year, and referring to them as "units of labour".
“Faggin accepts only one miracle, which is creation itself. He doesn’t explain it, and never mentions the G-word.” The lengths to which scientists will go to avoid invoking a Creator is remarkable to behold. Even after admitting there is at least one miracle, Faggin still can’t do it. Ridiculous.
The point of consciousness, perhaps is that it cannot be “figured out”. It’s too advantageous/favorable to human life to stay ambiguous, at best. At worst, that pesky toy named AI could drive us nuts…question our own flesh and blood materialism. Ok, I haven’t had my third cup of coffee yet…
Another great mind converges on consciousness.
How fitting, just yesterday I was introduced to the thoughts of Stuart Kauffman and I am looking forward to digging into his writing.
The one problem I see with this is that it is a hugely anthropocentric (spiritually if not physically) view of the universe, which neatly ties to our place in the universe under Judeo-Christianity because we were formed in God's image. It seems to veer perilously to the universe exists because we think it into existence (or God did so, and our access is via that). That makes "emergence" seem more like hand-waving? Oh, the form already existed, it was just waiting to be instantiated is hand-waving just as much.
We didn't have the tools of science to create explanations for thousands of years; we've barely had them for four centuries, yet we humans have never been unable to create explanations for what we observed but could not understand. Sometimes one wonders if we've made any real progress (outside the obvious material realm).
Michael Behe did something similar in the field of biology. The concept of irreducible complexity was used to argue against pure materialism and for intelligent design. His point being that Darwin posited his theory from the simplistic view that the cell was the basic building block of life forms and thus could be rearranged with relative ease. "Darwins Black Box" Worth a read.
Yes. I'll be covering this in the review of Noble's book.
Some thing must account for why objects register the values they do upon measurement.
Like the great pyramid after measurement the observant could see that the the past the present in the future are in encoded in the great pyramid
I was as well. Baker Labs. You?
Over on the Engineering side mostly.
“Remember that you don’t have to know _how_ something works, only _that_ it works.” Oh, you don’t? Quick, someone call Royal Raymond Rife, Wilhelm Reich, and Antoine Prioré and tell them to come back and start selling their inventions again!