Just wanted to step in and thank you once again for the clarity of your posts,
Salyavin.
Back in the Bad Old Days when reading this form was for me always combined with
the idea that doing so would force me to wade through dozens of posts trying to
"get" me personally to get to the occasional gem of wisdom, your posts provided
sufficient gems to make it worthwhile.
Now that most of those who churned out the stuff I had to wade through are
gone, your posts are still pretty gem-like. I may not always have something to
say in response to them, but that's most often because you've said them so well
there is nothing more to add. Thanks...
From: salyavin808 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 7:42 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
---In [email protected], <s3raphita@...> wrote :
Any sort of god must be immune to entropy. And that would need an impressive
explanation.
The Absolute is outside time and space. Entropy is a theory about phenomenal
change.
I think you meant to say "The absolute, if it exists, is outside space and
time" ;-)
We should take comfort from the fact that everything is explainable and that
everything has turned out to have a simple explanation.
Science limits itself to the measurable.
Everything is measurable, or how do you know it exists at all? Even if we
discover that the world cannot be without some other phenomena we will know
some of its attributes and will thus have made a measurement of sorts.
Watch what's flowing through your mind right at this instant. How much - or
rather how little - of that variety and novelty can you express in language or
quantify?
If my mind had a pause button I could express all of it.
Imagine a situation involving guilt or shame; or feeling how ephemeral and
fragile our lives are. In fact, try to picture what it must be like in those
last moments for a man facing a firing squad. Could that inner "final
judgement" be captured in a scientific report?
Yes. Its bound to be a mixture of guilt, terror, regret, mania, maybe even
laughter caused by shock. All these things can be understood as both physical,
hormonal responses and the subjective stuff we know and love. How they
interface is the mystery here.
---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote :
---In [email protected], <s3raphita@...> wrote :
Re salyavin808: The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too
seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just
avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious
sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one
ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's
all actually put together and start again from there.
Yeah, but . . . it's the "actually put together" bit that is soaked in
metaphysical assumptions. The type of person who tells us he's a hard-nosed,
down-to-earth, "just the facts ma'am" type is saying that *the real world* must
conform to his IDEAL view that the world is no-nonsense sensible. I agree about
not taking metaphors too literally.
We can't escape from the language trap.
Then we have to be sure we haven't created one for ourselves. Hence the
building of "my" world relies on nothing other than the simplest explanation of
the data and not on assuming things we simply think - or want - to be true. So
I exclude everything that doesn't fit in with the cornerstones of knowledge,
most importantly the theory of evolution by natural selection. This applies to
everything and not just us. If consciousness is some sort of eternal being that
survives us after death and is even some sort of quantum god thing, then
Darwinism has to go out of the window.
Physics would have to be completely rewritten too, I imagine the laws of
thermodynamics would be the first in the bin, which is a shame as they work
rather well, but any sort of god must be immune to entropy. And that would need
an impressive explanation.
So if we assume the universe is a no-nonsense sensible place that works
according to fathomable laws rather than for the convenience of invisible
creators we can get an ideal that allows for the further research needed to
explain what we don't know rather than one where things are assumed to be
beyond us and where our interpretations are seen as just as valid as
demonstrable theories. I worry that a lot of intelligent people are continually
looking in the wrong place for their gods and that they will get all the
publicity and research money because their answers are what people want to
hear. The net is full of crap research funded by some religion or other with an
agenda to push.
Trouble is, we are still in a 'god of the gaps' situation with consciousness
and intelligence but not enough to be able to say that they are part of some
sort of extra-material reality of which we currently know nothing. We should
take comfort from the fact that everything is explainable and that everything
has turned out to have a simple explanation that requires no add-on
supernatural powers but we like to reserve them for everything unexplained all
the same. The human condition I suppose.
So my "ideal" is based on what we can see and the knowledge that we are great
at inventing stories and so everything that doesn't fit in with the known laws
of nature is most likely our imagination. I convert for evidence though...
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