Thanks to EMM for the donation! I was interviewed by Duncan Thorin Shields (he goes by Thorin) last week. He asked the best questions I think I’ve ever been asked. He starts off wondering if people have an innate intuitive sense of truth. The answer is yes, to various extent. Just as some are tall, and some not as blessed, not everybody can grasp every truth, or “see” every axiom. This fits in with the Class discussion, for those who have been following it.
Repetition is absolutely necessary - like working out. An exercise becomes a routine, then a habit, then part of your character. So you better hope you start with a morally good exercise.
Starting to believe that not only is the ability to think variable but the degree of consciousness is as well. For example, we have what we call sociopaths, which appear to be people with a form of limited (while effective) consciousness.
Some people seem to have a consciousness close to that of a dog (or worse a cat). I'm not sure what this means for morality, but I would never hurt a dog.
" In other words, you have to catch Geller cheating."
Which (cheating - realising Geller wasn't telling the truth) would simply mean someone realising the modus operandi of bending is different than he WAS MADE to believe. Which would just open the question how did he do it, to make you believe (faith) he can do it the way he claimed he is doing it.
Which eventually leads to the inevitable question: When do I STOP asking inquiring HOW things are done or happen and START asking WHY/PURPOSE things happen - WHAT IS LIFE, i.e. the purpose of our existence?
It would be interesting to watch skeptics such as Michael Shermer be interrogated to learn if they are willing to accept that T <--> P, where T and P are telekinesis and psychic powers. If they dismiss it immediately, they haven't thought much about the basic concepts. Who would deny that telekinesis can happen if and only if there are psychic powers? Seems to be part of the very definition of telekinesis. P <--> T ought to hold even if an Abrahamic god exists.
Probably more than a few sceptics would become angry immediately upon being asked to accept it, in which case trying to defeat the Alternate Explanation Fallacy with direct attacks is a fool's errand. (Am I being unfair to them?) The sceptics are too emotionally invested in their position to be reasoned with, just like most Jews, even those not fanatically supremacist like "Orthodox" rabbis, are too emotionally invested in their nationalist victimology to be talked out of it without a great struggle against their malconfigured brains*. Even if you get one to accept the AEF as a fallacy, it will go back to its vomit the very next day, like the dog in Proverbs.
Now this AEF seems related to the habit of causal oversimplification, which we enounter all the time, esp. when our thirsts are in conflict with reality and virtue. Most people prefer tidy, brief explanations for complex issues. We love the single cause about as much as we love doubly loaded questions. Take yourself, for example. What is the cause of the cosmos? God did it.
We love the single cause so much that the habit is readily adapted to a related mistake, namely, that there's only one way to do this or that deed. Popular sayings have been conceived to overcome it. There is always more than one way to burn a book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
* I'm not implying physicalism but only that there are neural correlates of belief. It's not even clear that a human mind is confined to a brain and skull, much less that minds and thoughts are exclusively physical. The Abrahamic claim that belief has cardiac correlates, however, is basically just rubbish. See Proverbs 18:15 for scriptural evidence that no honest ommiscient being inspired Proverbs, or any other book of the older testament. Like astronomy, biology has its role to play in religion.
William, you have just given the definition for the modern scientific method.
"The only reason data is collected is because you told the collection what the answer was in advance, if you follow me. After all, you have to decide, in advance, what to collect, and, more importantly, what not to collect. "
I listened one teacher once saying that numbers and the relations between them are "primitive concepts" and that's why they cannot be proved and it's a waste of time to research that. Of course, he didn't like metaphysics. Numbers are built-it in the human machine, say materialists.
But when one studies metaphysics, pretty soon one starts thinking about morality, and then the idea emerges naturally that some individuals are better than other individuals, and that idea destroys all modern political thinking.
So it's better to compartmentalize everything in pristine disjoint categories, like mathematicians only think about numbers, and logicians only think about words and symbols, and physicists only think about establishing one world soviet supreme to take care of everything.
A bit in the post had me reflecting on the recent post on the religion switch. There must also be a key part of the brain for rationality and for logic. We see some mental health patients struggling in these regards, as evidence of the existence of such subsystems and their vulnerability to perturbance by internal breakdown and external stimulus/suppression. That these mechanisms exist does not imply that the following also do not exist: reason, logic, faith, truth, a creator, structures relationships in nature, and spirit. Also not implied is that religion does not exist and science does not exist. If one argues for the non-existence of one on that basis, one may also argue in the same manner against the other.
" Thorin reminds us that you have to hear something a million and one times, the first million being insufficient, until you grasp it. "
Just hearing things - blindly accept them - is going to turn you into a PARROT - just look at the world today. Mr FAUXI and GATES - most prominent among "trillions" that come for the obvious reasons to mind - are the perfect examples of that. The difference of FAUXI and GATES to the common man, who is being lured into the same modus operandi, is that he doesn't have THE MONEY, STATUS, NETWORK & UNSCRUPULOUSNESS - the latter being the main characteristic that the common man stays the common man - to create so much havoc. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
Repetition is absolutely necessary - like working out. An exercise becomes a routine, then a habit, then part of your character. So you better hope you start with a morally good exercise.
Starting to believe that not only is the ability to think variable but the degree of consciousness is as well. For example, we have what we call sociopaths, which appear to be people with a form of limited (while effective) consciousness.
Some people seem to have a consciousness close to that of a dog (or worse a cat). I'm not sure what this means for morality, but I would never hurt a dog.
" In other words, you have to catch Geller cheating."
Which (cheating - realising Geller wasn't telling the truth) would simply mean someone realising the modus operandi of bending is different than he WAS MADE to believe. Which would just open the question how did he do it, to make you believe (faith) he can do it the way he claimed he is doing it.
Which eventually leads to the inevitable question: When do I STOP asking inquiring HOW things are done or happen and START asking WHY/PURPOSE things happen - WHAT IS LIFE, i.e. the purpose of our existence?
Thank you Doc!
It would be interesting to watch skeptics such as Michael Shermer be interrogated to learn if they are willing to accept that T <--> P, where T and P are telekinesis and psychic powers. If they dismiss it immediately, they haven't thought much about the basic concepts. Who would deny that telekinesis can happen if and only if there are psychic powers? Seems to be part of the very definition of telekinesis. P <--> T ought to hold even if an Abrahamic god exists.
Probably more than a few sceptics would become angry immediately upon being asked to accept it, in which case trying to defeat the Alternate Explanation Fallacy with direct attacks is a fool's errand. (Am I being unfair to them?) The sceptics are too emotionally invested in their position to be reasoned with, just like most Jews, even those not fanatically supremacist like "Orthodox" rabbis, are too emotionally invested in their nationalist victimology to be talked out of it without a great struggle against their malconfigured brains*. Even if you get one to accept the AEF as a fallacy, it will go back to its vomit the very next day, like the dog in Proverbs.
Now this AEF seems related to the habit of causal oversimplification, which we enounter all the time, esp. when our thirsts are in conflict with reality and virtue. Most people prefer tidy, brief explanations for complex issues. We love the single cause about as much as we love doubly loaded questions. Take yourself, for example. What is the cause of the cosmos? God did it.
We love the single cause so much that the habit is readily adapted to a related mistake, namely, that there's only one way to do this or that deed. Popular sayings have been conceived to overcome it. There is always more than one way to burn a book.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
* I'm not implying physicalism but only that there are neural correlates of belief. It's not even clear that a human mind is confined to a brain and skull, much less that minds and thoughts are exclusively physical. The Abrahamic claim that belief has cardiac correlates, however, is basically just rubbish. See Proverbs 18:15 for scriptural evidence that no honest ommiscient being inspired Proverbs, or any other book of the older testament. Like astronomy, biology has its role to play in religion.
William, you have just given the definition for the modern scientific method.
"The only reason data is collected is because you told the collection what the answer was in advance, if you follow me. After all, you have to decide, in advance, what to collect, and, more importantly, what not to collect. "
Of course that is it! We see it every day.
I listened one teacher once saying that numbers and the relations between them are "primitive concepts" and that's why they cannot be proved and it's a waste of time to research that. Of course, he didn't like metaphysics. Numbers are built-it in the human machine, say materialists.
But when one studies metaphysics, pretty soon one starts thinking about morality, and then the idea emerges naturally that some individuals are better than other individuals, and that idea destroys all modern political thinking.
So it's better to compartmentalize everything in pristine disjoint categories, like mathematicians only think about numbers, and logicians only think about words and symbols, and physicists only think about establishing one world soviet supreme to take care of everything.
A bit in the post had me reflecting on the recent post on the religion switch. There must also be a key part of the brain for rationality and for logic. We see some mental health patients struggling in these regards, as evidence of the existence of such subsystems and their vulnerability to perturbance by internal breakdown and external stimulus/suppression. That these mechanisms exist does not imply that the following also do not exist: reason, logic, faith, truth, a creator, structures relationships in nature, and spirit. Also not implied is that religion does not exist and science does not exist. If one argues for the non-existence of one on that basis, one may also argue in the same manner against the other.
" Thorin reminds us that you have to hear something a million and one times, the first million being insufficient, until you grasp it. "
Just hearing things - blindly accept them - is going to turn you into a PARROT - just look at the world today. Mr FAUXI and GATES - most prominent among "trillions" that come for the obvious reasons to mind - are the perfect examples of that. The difference of FAUXI and GATES to the common man, who is being lured into the same modus operandi, is that he doesn't have THE MONEY, STATUS, NETWORK & UNSCRUPULOUSNESS - the latter being the main characteristic that the common man stays the common man - to create so much havoc. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!