|
|
|
|
blonde_loves_bolts
Oct 19, 2006, 5:32 PM
Post #76 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Apr 7, 2005
Posts: 2287
|
In reply to: "Still bitter that you don't know an actual thing about me? If you were interested in arguing substantively and not personally, you'd stop throwing out useless and fallacious 'insights' about me in the hopes that one might stick. Since you haven't made that evolutionary leap, I guess your blockheadedness is still holding you back." Huh? For starters, I take about .0001 seconds to hack out responses on this and other threads so kindly forgive all my many typos. Nevertheless you are inverting things again, there, Blondy.
I don't regret the 'blockheadedness' comment at all. And while I could care less about your many typos, it might up your ethos a bit if you learned to use the 'quote' button.
In reply to: When a peson posits a particular take on things, it is a personal take, simple as that. You cannot wrench out the personal and suddenly arrive at a magical "substance" devoid of the personal, as though the two were separate.
This is a central issue. However, for the purposes of the reader, the only thing 'personal' about a personal take is that it in fact came from a person. I maintain that you privilege the 'personal' over the 'take,' which is unfortunate, because my personal take is that we could get a lot more accomplished if we focused on the text and not its alleged origin(s).
In reply to: It is clear that you have a certain belief about how consciousness actually works and doesn't work, what it involves and what it doesn't involve. I use the word "belief" because even though out forth in your pronouncements the vibration that it is the plain and simple truth that is being set forth, your beliefs are based on your own experience, which leads you believe in perspectivism (I think), or something close to it.
I maintain that for substantive purposes, 'belief' ought to be replaced with 'argument.' I don't care to respond to your beliefs; I care about the arguments on the screen. It seems that you are putting a premium on experience here; however, you're not just saying that experience is what shapes perspective. You're asserting that experience qualifies you to comment with authority on whatever subject is presently at hand. That's the universal point I'm disputing.
In reply to: That's your experience, and more power to you. My only contention is that when you attempt to universalize that experience to cover all of mankind, meaning exeryone's experience MUST be the same as yours, your into the arena of beliefs and concepts, since you do not actually know that is the case. How would you know unless you've lived in other people's heads and had their experiences? When you judge everyone by your own experiences, your bound to be mistaken at least some of the time.
Largo, for the umpteenth time, I do not agree with the practice of universalization. It is your own personal problem that you take my statements as universal assertions of truth. They're not.
In reply to: Lastly, consciousness is itself omnicient and non-local. "We" are not. The task is to step away from the "us" and move toward the global and away from the merely perspective. I suspect that no one every gets all the way there--out to that strand of stars--since the adventure is without end.
That sounds sort of familiar... wasn't there some genius leader that once argued that humans should follow their omniscient consciousness out into the adventure of space, in the hopes that they might one day get there??
Oh, wait... it was this guy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/...en/4/47/199982.3.gif
|
|
|
|
|
petsfed
Oct 19, 2006, 7:26 PM
Post #77 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Sep 25, 2002
Posts: 8599
|
First
In reply to: Fortunately, thanks to a whole host of things which scientists have no way to understand or describe and which terrify them to the point of hatred and invective, I know that there are people and things in this world which mean infinitely more than all those countless stars and planets put together.
In reply to: I didn't even mention it, and wasn't referring to it - I was actually talking about love, emotion and simple compassion.
So maybe its too strong a reading to say that we don't feel them. Then again, I'm not afraid of happiness even though I can't explain it. And I consider myself a scientist. In fact, a lot of the people I work with aren't afraid of things they can't explain. I would even go so far as to say that professional scientists don't fear the unknown, rather it calls to them like a flame to a moth. I can't really speak for Joe Blow atheist though, since he's typically the one rocking the hatred and invective.
|
|
|
|
|
vivalargo
Oct 19, 2006, 7:58 PM
Post #78 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Nov 26, 2002
Posts: 1512
|
Blondy wrote: "I maintain that for substantive purposes, 'belief' ought to be replaced with 'argument.' I don't care to respond to your beliefs; I care about the arguments on the screen. It seems that you are putting a premium on experience here; however, you're not just saying that experience is what shapes perspective. You're asserting that experience qualifies you to comment with authority on whatever subject is presently at hand. That's the universal point I'm disputing."
The contention that your arguments can somehow arise from some place disconnected from your beliefs is actually true, in my experience, but the only way for that to ever happen is to undergo the long process of unhooking from your rational/evaluating mind, which is almost if not entirely beholden to your beliefs, conscious or otherwise. Even a cursory investigation of personality will show to you that "perspecive" is largely (almost all) the fruit of personality. Yes, consciousness can to varrying degrees operate outside of closed loop of personality and perspectives, but in my experience a person has to do a lot of work to see how personality basically runs the show before you'd have a ghost of a chance to ever know how this all can work.
I suspect that you consider that perspective and experience are basically the same thing, and that one is bound to the other. This is in fact how it usually works. Most all of what people normally "see" or experience is extruded through their conditioned past, whereas you end up with a cognitive or mental representation of what is seen, based on your past. You can interpret the present with "arguments," but those arguments are largely if not entirely shaped by facts and ideas already known. Raw awareness, however, works differently--or at least it can, if you are shown how to break the enmeshment or fusion of awareness with content, or what falls withing the purview of awareness. Awareness in and of itself has no content. It is entirely "empty," like the sky. The clouds that loft though the sky comprise the content, so to speak. If you were to look back at that photo of that strand of stars, raw awareness would be like the empty space in which all those stars appear--and the space is not the stars themselves. It is possible for awareness to operate in the same way---it's basically the way awareness is in its opure form, but the mind has a habbit of fusing onto what passes through (thoughts, ideas, feelings, sensations, et al) and in the process, raw awareness is lost as the focus shifts to the content. When you experience awareness in this way you eventually realize that it is non-local, like the space harboring that strand of stars. "Location," in time and space, is entirely beholden to content. Without material stars to plot location, there is no up or down or back or forth and there's also no "me" or perspective in the normal sense of the word, which relies on thoughts and content. Here, the personal persective is transcended -- never lost -- but it no longer is the screen through which content is strictly extruded. It is in this space that non-material and, for lack of a better word -- spiritual realities naturally arise, stuff which the personal perspective, personality, and evaluating mind normally masks like a shuttered window.
My personality arises when I intentionally raze and goad you, Blondy, and trigger inflamatory and often hilarious retorts--which I deserve and thoroughly enjoy. But I'm serious about it being possible to transcend our personal perspectives--not entirely, but to an extent that stuff you never knew that you never knew--and which your rational mind can never fully grasp--opens up to whoever makes the effort. And FYI, such experiencing does not automatically lead to whack jobs leading the unwitting off the edge of a cliff, nor does it result in cosmic debris and Zen doubletalk.
But now I've written away my lunch break and have to get back to it.
JL
|
|
|
|
|
kachoong
Oct 19, 2006, 9:41 PM
Post #79 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 15304
|
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA00452.jpg
In reply to: Personally, I don't find that picture depressing at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. To me, it really brings home how small and fragile our world really is, and arouses all my protective instincts. But that's just me, I guess.
In reply to: When I look at that photo, I see a radiologist's view of what a philosopher sees when his head is stuck up his ass.
All I think when I see that photo is how friggin' dusty my room is compared to that, especially when the sun shines through the window! Sh!t, I gotta vacuum!
btw... Richard Dawkins is a great author... it's a bit of a challenge to read, but check out "The Blind Watch Maker"... it's as deep as I've seen evolution explained in a philosophical way.... :? if that makes sense.
|
|
|
|
|
blonde_loves_bolts
Oct 19, 2006, 11:32 PM
Post #80 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Apr 7, 2005
Posts: 2287
|
Largo, you are a dense, aging juvenile. I hope you enjoy the view.
|
|
|
|
|
slablizard
Oct 19, 2006, 11:47 PM
Post #81 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Oct 13, 2003
Posts: 5558
|
In reply to: Largo, you are a dense, aging juvenile.
Aren't we all ? ;)
I know I am. Apart the "aging" part of course. I'm still growing up...so? What's wrong with it?
Ok ok I'll be quiet...you guys keep argu-menting
|
|
|
|
|
blonde_loves_bolts
Oct 20, 2006, 12:38 AM
Post #82 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Apr 7, 2005
Posts: 2287
|
In reply to: In reply to: Largo, you are a dense, aging juvenile. Aren't we all ? ;) I know I am. Apart the "aging" part of course...
Remind me again where the hair that used to be on the top of your head went??
:wink:
|
|
|
|
|
vivalargo
Oct 20, 2006, 2:13 AM
Post #83 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Nov 26, 2002
Posts: 1512
|
In reply to: Largo, you are a dense, aging juvenile. I hope you enjoy the view.
Blondy, that's pretty weak compared to the philosopher's head-up-her-ass retort and the balding pate wise crack you done flung at Stabalized. I fully expected you to bust out your "A" material for the clams-on-a-half shell I missed dashing out that post awhile back. What gives? Where's 'da love, Sweetness?
JL
|
|
|
|
|
blonde_loves_bolts
Oct 20, 2006, 6:30 AM
Post #84 of 84
(1338 views)
Shortcut
Registered: Apr 7, 2005
Posts: 2287
|
In reply to: In reply to: Largo, you are a dense, aging juvenile. I hope you enjoy the view. Blondy, that's pretty weak compared to the philosopher's head-up-her-ass retort and the balding pate wise crack you done flung at Stabalized. I fully expected you to bust out your "A" material for the clams-on-a-half shell I missed dashing out that post awhile back. What gives? Where's 'da love, Sweetness? JL
You gotta earn it!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
