All you're proving with your blahs, is that you don't have depth of thought and presence of mind to tease out the subtle nuances of an idea.
We can work on that.
<blah>
you must drill to achieve greater depth. I catch most of what you post. However, quite like the way I tend to express thoughts, it's still Blah blah to most people. Sucsinctness is unfortunately the order of the day when communicating with others.
Blah blah blah.
[EDIT] Perhapse it's better to put it this way: Abstract thought and divergent thinking in general are not for the general public, and is generally useless when trying to ARGUE or DEBATE an idea. They are extraordinarily useful tools for exploring ideas, for brainstorming, and for finding obscure connections. Just useless for debate. If the other person doesn't understand my angle on a particular point, then, while they may get to thinking on it differently later on, they will reject it in the present.
hmm, another quick thought.... why is it that in nearly every aspect of american culture (and I can only suppose that other cultures would be similar, but I'll not make that assumption) the color black is associated with evil and corruption, and white with purity and goodness.... And yet all of our clergy choose to wear BLACK? That aint a good sign. oh, yeah, except the pope. but all his minions are either in RED, associated with blood, or black, associated with evil. Kinda fun to consider it from that perspective, at least for a moment.
For you, theist, faith may be enough. If it is, then I wish you happiness and safety in your beliefs. But do not pretend for even one second, that you have any scientific basis for what you believe. Do no pretend, for even one second, that your faith is based on anything other than faith. And, most importantly, do not EVER lie to someone else and try to convince them that there is even the slightest scientific basis for your beliefs. Question your beliefs all you care to. Question our beliefs all you care to. Find GOOD QUESTIONS, and let us all discuss them, and be open to CONSIDERING the answers we provide, asking for clarification in those places which do not make sense. But don't ever try to pretend that you are doing science when you are not.
Excellent post Celemourn. You've explained most eloquently that which really gets my back up about Creationism. Creationism purports to be Science, when it most certainly is not.
you must drill to achieve greater depth. I catch most of what you post. However, quite like the way I tend to express thoughts, it's still Blah blah to most people. Sucsinctness is unfortunately the order of the day when communicating with others.
Blah blah blah.
[EDIT] Perhapse it's better to put it this way: Abstract thought and divergent thinking in general are not for the general public, and is generally useless when trying to ARGUE or DEBATE an idea. They are extraordinarily useful tools for exploring ideas, for brainstorming, and for finding obscure connections. Just useless for debate. If the other person doesn't understand my angle on a particular point, then, while they may get to thinking on it differently later on, they will reject it in the present.
</blah>
Maybe im not catering for the general public. Its often humourously stated that 95% of the people are idiots. I've met enough general public to confidently say that 99% of them are idiots.
Infact, this culture of succinctness is what i am fighting against. Bulletpoint society has killed deep rational introspective thinking and made the lot of us mind zombies who are unable to think. And look at the consequences.
At one end of the scale there are the religious fundies who simply cant think - the idiot savant. Good at one thing only - parrotting someone elses opinion.
At the other end the Scientists, they might appear really smart with their high IQ's, but they too are the idiot savant. Good at only one thing. Parrotting the established facts.
Both cultures have alot in common. Say one thing against the established dogma and you'll be hanged. In both cases what they are teaching is opinion on stuff that is not known.
What there is in both cases are a couple of good teachers - say Jesus and Einstein - and a rabble of following that cant think for themselves but can memorize everything they ever did or said or worked out. And they appear to be smart because they can bury you in Jesus' sayings or the facts of science.
But the point of recognising the herostature of Jesus or Einstein is not remembering what they said to the point of religious stupidity, but to get inside and understand the way they thought and why they said it - and most importantly what it means.
You cant do that with bulletpoints. All you achieve is to make a stupid population. Jesus didn't give us a bulletpointed 1001 new commandments - he gave us an insight of how he thought - and how we should think. Any moran can learn "love thy enemies" and repeat it till they're blue in the face - but it means something - and then it means something more again up to the point where you realise its dumb to learn what Jesus said - because thats unimportant - but you learn the way Jesus thought and apply it to yourself or life.
Same with Einstein, any moran can learn that e=mc2 - but it means something - and then it means something more again. e=mc2 might be somewhat important to remember, but the real lesson is to visualize things like Einstein did.
Those fractals I posted are just abstractions of a math expression. There are smarter people than I who can give you a bullet point list of the facts of Chaos i've not even explored yet. Fine, but that picture is an abstraction of something that is more than just the math. - It means something. Profound. Bulletpointed lists of the really smart dont ever touch on this.
What does Quantum uncertainty mean? And then what does it really mean. Philosophically. Are the two related? Who knows? Might it mean something?
Everything religion teaches and everything we know today from Science is one day going to be obsolete. For an awful lot of people who deem themselves to be smart are going to find that they are obsolete too. Except for the people who've learned how to think.
So im not catering for the obsolete. These are coded messages to seek out people who are on the path of knowing how to think and what it means. For everyone else, im quite happy for them in their ignorance to believe im a mentally ill blah'er.
ROTFLMAO!!! Weeell, shit, now its Creationists vs. Scientists vs. Philosophers!
Someone else want to tackle this one? I'm still laughing!
The one great thing about being a philosopher is that no one can ever prove you're wrong, because philosophy is all just perspective and interpretation anyway! But damn, man, I wish _I_ was cool enough to know exactly what a Might-Have-Existed-2000-Year-Dead-Guy and one of the worlds most renowned (and most dead) Physicists were thinking. That must be one of the most arrogant beliefs I've ever run in to. The 'Let me pretend that I know exactly what this person was thinking, so that I can leach off of their credibility and fame to push my own agenda' attitude is (in my opinion of course) one of the silliest, most self deceptive, and dishonest modes of thought that one can engage in. It's like the highschool english teacher trying to tell me what the anonymous author of Beowulf was thinking when they wrote about Grendel. Fun to loose oneself in such delusions, but ultimately, it's just an attempt to drown in fantasy. Worse, if it alters ones world view in a negative way.
<opens a bag of Nabisco Bullet-Points and starts munching> Mmmm, tasty.
*EDIT* yes, I know, Beowulf started as an ORAL tradition, rather than a written one.
Whether one refrains from calling creationism science or not, promoting a ridiculous fairy tale so far out of whack with fact and reason as God's Own Unshakable TRVTH is not what I'd care to refer to "honest", unless one wants to credit as "honest" being honestly and sincerely deluded.
At one end of the scale there are the religious fundies who simply cant think - the idiot savant. Good at one thing only - parrotting someone elses opinion.
At the other end the Scientists, they might appear really smart with their high IQ's, but they too are the idiot savant. Good at only one thing. Parrotting the established facts.
Most fundamentalists are indeed incredibly anti-intellectual and, it often appears, willfully ignorant. A good many, however, do think, and think a lot. They refuse to question many of their basic assumptions, however, locked as they often are into a mindset which says which it would be morally WRONG and even morally DANGEROUS to do so. There are a few very smart fundamentalists who waste a lot of obvious intellectual talent on the mental gymnastics it takes to prop up their belief system.
I reject your characterization of "Scientists", which might well fit a few stagnant minds out there, but which has little to do with the good practice of science. Good scientists have questioning minds. Of course, some people don't think you're truly "questioning" something until you're actually acting like you have come to disbelieve the thing questioned, and put up a fuss about how the mean ol' Establishment is enforcing orthodoxy and stifling new ideas.
I suspect that you consider your cartoon Scientist insufficiently "open minded". An open mind is a good thing, but some people open their minds so far that their brains fall out on the floor. Some self-styled open-minded individuals accept far too many incongruous and incompatible ideas, reject too few ideas (hard-edged science is usually right up there among those few things which do get rejected). Rather than wasting their intellectual energies on propping up one specific dogma as fundamentalists might, these Philosophers waste that same energy on elaborate but untested and untestable fantasies, and on issues with as much significance as the number of angels that can dance on a pinhead.
Then there's the curiously paradoxical Orthodoxy of anti-Orthodoxy, wherein one must vehemently insist that It's All Good, that everyone has their own "path to the truth", every religion is simply a "different aspect of truth", etc.
I'm not saying any or all of this applies to you, MarkUK (although I do think you're just being nutty when you think you're being profound at times). This is more a general rant against where things often go when people decry the intellectual rigor of scientific thinking.
[Edit: added one character, changed one character.]
Im glad you've got the presence of mind to see that philosophy is a load of deceitful bollocks - infact I said the same thing myself a few weeks ago.
It would seem that there are groundbreaking Scientists, groundbreaking Religionists and groundbreaking philosophers. They are a rare breed and the aim in life should be to understand them and emulate them.
There are also idiot Scientists, idiot Religionists and idiot philosophers. The common adjective being idiot. They are a far too common breed and the aim in life should be to reject them and critisize them.
Bullet point bunnies are idiots. Every child can learn multiplication tables if its drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day. Scientists can learn theories if its drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day. Religionists can learn the 10 commandments and every saying of Jesus if it's drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day.
All this leads to nothing except being a rabid parrot and has the unfortunate consequence of giving an illusion of intelligence, which other idiots conditioned the same way congratulate them for.
Which is all well and nice - and it can be somewhat useful to be a parrot when you're dealing with known and established facts. 5*12 is always 72. E always =mc2 and Jesus prefers that you love thy enemies instead of gauging out their eyes.
But what happens when 5*12 does not equal 60? When e doesn't quite = mc2? and Jesus didn't say anything about your issue?
You then need to draw from a whole lot brainwashing you havn't had drummed into you, and your science, religion and philosophy wont be able help you - unless you have gotten into the mindset of what makes a great person greater than a bulletpoint bunny.
And greatness is knowing how to beat a path when there is no beaten path. And that starts with living and feeling and being intimate with the old path and visualizing a new path where there is none. It isn't great to be trapsing round in circles along a beaten path because you dont have depth of mind of how to make a new one.
And that works across the board, science, religion and philosophy. Most of them are going round and round an old path and very few really know how to forge a new beginning.
Years ago, there was a letter to the editor in Time (somewhere bettwen 1985 and 1991) about the beginning of life on earth. It was by a college student who said he didn't know what all the fuss was all about- God did it or science did it or whatever; he and his room-mate had the answer. Returning from vacation, they discovered they had left a pizza their refrigerator... and by their return, it had developed into a mulitude of life forms. So, their understanding was that the earth was bombarded by hundreds of intergalactic pizzas, thus starting life on earth.
I sometimes still think this is the best answer, as we gget too caught up looking backwards when life is moving on.
Comments
<BLAH>
</BLAH>
All you're proving with your blahs, is that you don't have depth of thought and presence of mind to tease out the subtle nuances of an idea.
We can work on that.
All you're proving with your blahs, is that you don't have depth of thought and presence of mind to tease out the subtle nuances of an idea.
We can work on that.
<blah>
you must drill to achieve greater depth. I catch most of what you post. However, quite like the way I tend to express thoughts, it's still Blah blah to most people. Sucsinctness is unfortunately the order of the day when communicating with others.
Blah blah blah.
[EDIT] Perhapse it's better to put it this way: Abstract thought and divergent thinking in general are not for the general public, and is generally useless when trying to ARGUE or DEBATE an idea. They are extraordinarily useful tools for exploring ideas, for brainstorming, and for finding obscure connections. Just useless for debate. If the other person doesn't understand my angle on a particular point, then, while they may get to thinking on it differently later on, they will reject it in the present.
</blah>
For you, theist, faith may be enough. If it is, then I wish you happiness and safety in your beliefs. But do not pretend for even one second, that you have any scientific basis for what you believe. Do no pretend, for even one second, that your faith is based on anything other than faith. And, most importantly, do not EVER lie to someone else and try to convince them that there is even the slightest scientific basis for your beliefs. Question your beliefs all you care to. Question our beliefs all you care to. Find GOOD QUESTIONS, and let us all discuss them, and be open to CONSIDERING the answers we provide, asking for clarification in those places which do not make sense. But don't ever try to pretend that you are doing science when you are not.
Excellent post Celemourn. You've explained most eloquently that which really gets my back up about Creationism. Creationism purports to be Science, when it most certainly is not.
<blah>
you must drill to achieve greater depth. I catch most of what you post. However, quite like the way I tend to express thoughts, it's still Blah blah to most people. Sucsinctness is unfortunately the order of the day when communicating with others.
Blah blah blah.
[EDIT] Perhapse it's better to put it this way: Abstract thought and divergent thinking in general are not for the general public, and is generally useless when trying to ARGUE or DEBATE an idea. They are extraordinarily useful tools for exploring ideas, for brainstorming, and for finding obscure connections. Just useless for debate. If the other person doesn't understand my angle on a particular point, then, while they may get to thinking on it differently later on, they will reject it in the present.
</blah>
Maybe im not catering for the general public. Its often humourously stated that 95% of the people are idiots. I've met enough general public to confidently say that 99% of them are idiots.
Infact, this culture of succinctness is what i am fighting against. Bulletpoint society has killed deep rational introspective thinking and made the lot of us mind zombies who are unable to think. And look at the consequences.
At one end of the scale there are the religious fundies who simply cant think - the idiot savant. Good at one thing only - parrotting someone elses opinion.
At the other end the Scientists, they might appear really smart with their high IQ's, but they too are the idiot savant. Good at only one thing. Parrotting the established facts.
Both cultures have alot in common. Say one thing against the established dogma and you'll be hanged. In both cases what they are teaching is opinion on stuff that is not known.
What there is in both cases are a couple of good teachers - say Jesus and Einstein - and a rabble of following that cant think for themselves but can memorize everything they ever did or said or worked out. And they appear to be smart because they can bury you in Jesus' sayings or the facts of science.
But the point of recognising the herostature of Jesus or Einstein is not remembering what they said to the point of religious stupidity, but to get inside and understand the way they thought and why they said it - and most importantly what it means.
You cant do that with bulletpoints. All you achieve is to make a stupid population. Jesus didn't give us a bulletpointed 1001 new commandments - he gave us an insight of how he thought - and how we should think. Any moran can learn "love thy enemies" and repeat it till they're blue in the face - but it means something - and then it means something more again up to the point where you realise its dumb to learn what Jesus said - because thats unimportant - but you learn the way Jesus thought and apply it to yourself or life.
Same with Einstein, any moran can learn that e=mc2 - but it means something - and then it means something more again. e=mc2 might be somewhat important to remember, but the real lesson is to visualize things like Einstein did.
Those fractals I posted are just abstractions of a math expression. There are smarter people than I who can give you a bullet point list of the facts of Chaos i've not even explored yet. Fine, but that picture is an abstraction of something that is more than just the math. - It means something. Profound. Bulletpointed lists of the really smart dont ever touch on this.
What does Quantum uncertainty mean? And then what does it really mean. Philosophically. Are the two related? Who knows? Might it mean something?
Everything religion teaches and everything we know today from Science is one day going to be obsolete. For an awful lot of people who deem themselves to be smart are going to find that they are obsolete too. Except for the people who've learned how to think.
So im not catering for the obsolete. These are coded messages to seek out people who are on the path of knowing how to think and what it means. For everyone else, im quite happy for them in their ignorance to believe im a mentally ill blah'er.
Maybe im not etc., etc., etc., etc.
ROTFLMAO!!! Weeell, shit, now its Creationists vs. Scientists vs. Philosophers!
Someone else want to tackle this one? I'm still laughing!
The one great thing about being a philosopher is that no one can ever prove you're wrong, because philosophy is all just perspective and interpretation anyway! But damn, man, I wish _I_ was cool enough to know exactly what a Might-Have-Existed-2000-Year-Dead-Guy and one of the worlds most renowned (and most dead) Physicists were thinking.
<opens a bag of Nabisco Bullet-Points and starts munching> Mmmm, tasty.
*EDIT* yes, I know, Beowulf started as an ORAL tradition, rather than a written one.
Creationism purports to be Science
No, it does not. That would be Intelligent Design.
No, it does not. That would be Intelligent Design.
I thought they were the same thing? It seems the word Creationism is slowly being misappropriated.
I thought they were the same thing? It seems the word Creationism is slowly being misappropriated.
Intelligent Design is a concept that pretends to be science, and pretends not to be based on creationism.
Creationism is unscientific but at least honest.
Intelligent Design is a concept that pretends to be science, and pretends not to be based on creationism.
Creationism is unscientific but at least honest.
Indeed. I have no problem with concepts being unscientific, unless they then go and claim to be science.
Creationism is unscientific but at least honest.
Whether one refrains from calling creationism science or not, promoting a ridiculous fairy tale so far out of whack with fact and reason as God's Own Unshakable TRVTH is not what I'd care to refer to "honest", unless one wants to credit as "honest" being honestly and sincerely deluded.
At one end of the scale there are the religious fundies who simply cant think - the idiot savant. Good at one thing only - parrotting someone elses opinion.
At the other end the Scientists, they might appear really smart with their high IQ's, but they too are the idiot savant. Good at only one thing. Parrotting the established facts.
Most fundamentalists are indeed incredibly anti-intellectual and, it often appears, willfully ignorant. A good many, however, do think, and think a lot. They refuse to question many of their basic assumptions, however, locked as they often are into a mindset which says which it would be morally WRONG and even morally DANGEROUS to do so. There are a few very smart fundamentalists who waste a lot of obvious intellectual talent on the mental gymnastics it takes to prop up their belief system.
I reject your characterization of "Scientists", which might well fit a few stagnant minds out there, but which has little to do with the good practice of science. Good scientists have questioning minds. Of course, some people don't think you're truly "questioning" something until you're actually acting like you have come to disbelieve the thing questioned, and put up a fuss about how the mean ol' Establishment is enforcing orthodoxy and stifling new ideas.
I suspect that you consider your cartoon Scientist insufficiently "open minded". An open mind is a good thing, but some people open their minds so far that their brains fall out on the floor. Some self-styled open-minded individuals accept far too many incongruous and incompatible ideas, reject too few ideas (hard-edged science is usually right up there among those few things which do get rejected). Rather than wasting their intellectual energies on propping up one specific dogma as fundamentalists might, these Philosophers waste that same energy on elaborate but untested and untestable fantasies, and on issues with as much significance as the number of angels that can dance on a pinhead.
Then there's the curiously paradoxical Orthodoxy of anti-Orthodoxy, wherein one must vehemently insist that It's All Good, that everyone has their own "path to the truth", every religion is simply a "different aspect of truth", etc.
I'm not saying any or all of this applies to you, MarkUK (although I do think you're just being nutty when you think you're being profound at times). This is more a general rant against where things often go when people decry the intellectual rigor of scientific thinking.
[Edit: added one character, changed one character.]
That one was just for you, Mark.
yes I know, I dont really mind.
Im glad you've got the presence of mind to see that philosophy is a load of deceitful bollocks - infact I said the same thing myself a few weeks ago.
It would seem that there are groundbreaking Scientists, groundbreaking Religionists and groundbreaking philosophers. They are a rare breed and the aim in life should be to understand them and emulate them.
There are also idiot Scientists, idiot Religionists and idiot philosophers. The common adjective being idiot. They are a far too common breed and the aim in life should be to reject them and critisize them.
Bullet point bunnies are idiots. Every child can learn multiplication tables if its drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day. Scientists can learn theories if its drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day. Religionists can learn the 10 commandments and every saying of Jesus if it's drummed into them and they repeat it 5 times a day.
All this leads to nothing except being a rabid parrot and has the unfortunate consequence of giving an illusion of intelligence, which other idiots conditioned the same way congratulate them for.
Which is all well and nice - and it can be somewhat useful to be a parrot when you're dealing with known and established facts. 5*12 is always 72. E always =mc2 and Jesus prefers that you love thy enemies instead of gauging out their eyes.
But what happens when 5*12 does not equal 60? When e doesn't quite = mc2? and Jesus didn't say anything about your issue?
You then need to draw from a whole lot brainwashing you havn't had drummed into you, and your science, religion and philosophy wont be able help you - unless you have gotten into the mindset of what makes a great person greater than a bulletpoint bunny.
And greatness is knowing how to beat a path when there is no beaten path. And that starts with living and feeling and being intimate with the old path and visualizing a new path where there is none. It isn't great to be trapsing round in circles along a beaten path because you dont have depth of mind of how to make a new one.
And that works across the board, science, religion and philosophy. Most of them are going round and round an old path and very few really know how to forge a new beginning.
(the other pages are pretty good, too)
http://www.avolites.org.uk/jokes/nationality.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/05/cover.story/index.html
Years ago, there was a letter to the editor in Time (somewhere bettwen 1985 and 1991) about the beginning of life on earth. It was by a college student who said he didn't know what all the fuss was all about- God did it or science did it or whatever; he and his room-mate had the answer. Returning from vacation, they discovered they had left a pizza their refrigerator... and by their return, it had developed into a mulitude of life forms. So, their understanding was that the earth was bombarded by hundreds of intergalactic pizzas, thus starting life on earth.
I sometimes still think this is the best answer, as we gget too caught up looking backwards when life is moving on.
I sometimes still think this is the best answer, as we gget too caught up looking backwards when life is moving on.
It's plausible until you understand the fundamental concepts of chemistry (pizzas dont create hydrogen and helium atoms). Still funny tho.
It's plausible until you understand the fundamental concepts of chemistry (pizzas dont create hydrogen and helium atoms). Still funny tho.
why let facts get in the way of a good theory?
why let facts get in the way of a good theory?
And that very statement is what started religion
And that very statement is what started religion
well, i would have thought that becoming conscious is what started religion...