RE: Idiot Test
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2015 8:07 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test On 14 Aug 2015, at 23:21, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: _ From: Kim Jones mailto:kimjo...@ozemail.com.au kimjo...@ozemail.com.au To: mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 2:11 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Idiocy only ever applies to other people, yes. It's like sexual perversion and corruption; these things are done only by others, never by me! Why I speak of the need for some fabled 'test' - a bit like Alice drinking from the bottle marked 'drink me'. Alice was no idiot. She had the fundamental human curiosity to suck it and see rather than fall back on some safer, less interactive approach. Perhaps idiots lack the curiosity to undergo some experience that will doubtlesly undermine their chosen weltanshauung. I would agree that a profound lack of curiosity is a hallmark of idiocy. But I disagree that it only ever applies to other people. I contend that idiocy is latent and innate within all of us; and recognize that it is potentially within my own being… even perhaps unbeknownst to me. It is this later kind of idiocy that is most insidious and hardest to recognize and transcend. You can call me an idiot if you want but you would be using some other attribution criteria to the ones I am putting forward. I am calling no one an idiot, by calling all of us – bipedal, slightly enlarged fore-brain apes (on the beginning of a journey to infinity) -- out as having the innate potential for idiocy latent (or active as it may be) within us. Trouble is, if we ever really decided what constituted an idiot, there would soon be no more idiots because then we would have it nailed and could genuinely do something about it. Idiots, however, abound in society. It is more, as Bruno says, some willful act of denying something absurdly; a kind of mendacity. Furthermore, I do not consider someone an idiot who does not agree with me. That's where you have failed to take in the message, Chris. There are always alternatives, and the inability to take stock of them is where idiots reveal themselves. Actually, I don't go in search of agreement or disagreement. I prefer exploration and suspension of judgement. Explorers don't judge the terrain they explore; they create a map. I have changed my views several times over regarding core matters. Actually I find it rather easy to drop one set of ideas for another. For that reason, no one will ever catch me in the act of being certain about anything. Even about who the idiots are. Sure... there are always alternatives (or most of the time anyways) and idiocy is the mode of mind that becomes stuck in one explanation excluding all other possibility. Some would say stuck in a wrong explanation, as it might not ben so stupid to keep an explanation when it works. Now, technically, this is provably false in theoretical Artificial Intellligence as a machine able to change its mind, even when her explanation work, will recognize large classes of (computable) phenomena (by a result of Case Smith). But that concerns competence, and I like to distinguish it from intelligence which I see more like a protagorean virtue, obeying []p - ~p. My point is that we are all of susceptible to that idiotic mode and that it is vital therefore to always keep this in mind. We ourselves may be idiots at times (even if we think we are being brilliant). OK. I am not saying anything one way or another about you or anybody else in particular, merely cautioning everyone (including most of all myself) that idiocy is an insidious trap, which can creep up from within unnoticed and will often masquerade itself as being something entirely more intelligent. We must remain constantly vigilant about our own innate potential for slipping into idiotic mental frames; and only by recognizing this as a real and ever present potential existing within ourselves can we in fact remain vigilant. Yes, that works well with the protagorean thing. The slipping is always nearby. There are no algorithm to prevent it, but humans have good slogan and heuristics, like Hell is paved with good intention, turn your tongue seven times in your mouth before asserting something big, etc. Oops, I have to go, .. Precisely…. At each frame of reference moment there are a thousand ways to slip down into mental ruts, beckoning with modes of belief (idocy), all wrapped up and sometimes most appealing in their superficial nature. Because I am acutely aware of just how easy it is to slip (one way or the other… so many ways to falter)…. I try (don’t
Re: Idiot Test
On 14 Aug 2015, at 00:21, chris peck wrote: Once there are experience, we can only have partial consensus. Now, I know better salvia than DMT, and the resemblance of the experience is striking. It goes like -30% feel the feminine presence (called lady D, or virgin Maria, etc..). -75% feel the rotation/vortex -67% feel the alternate reality/realities -10% feel the copy/reset effect -49% feel the home effect, etc. These are not the kind of 'metaphysical messages' I was referring to. These are just phenomena that similar physical systems perturbed by the same physical substance might be expected to experience. Take the rotation/vortex. Theres no question its an impressive sight and far from being ephemeral seems utterly immersive and made of physical stuff. On weaker psychedelics you get a hint of it, but with DMT or high doses of Psilocybin etc, you are thrown into the vortex as if it were as real as any perception of the real world. On the one hand you could imagine that you are genuinely travelling through an alien geometry and architecture, and many people who 'smoalk' do. On the other hand you might conclude that the neural apparatus of perception is just being tickled in the same way by the same chemical, and many people who 'smoalk' think that instead. OK. It might help them to doubt the primary character of the physical universe, as the brain activity is emulated in arithmetic without any need in physical ontological commitment other than arithmetical realism (which is at the base of any scientific activity). The fact that the imagery can be accounted for and predicted could be evidence for a brute identity theory. https://plus.maths.org/content/uncoiling-spiral-maths-and-hallucinations This type of reasoning assume mechanism, so the brute identity cannot work. The point being that the brute phenomena itself doesn't lend itself easily to one conclusion or its opposite. Strassman thinks DMT allows the mind to escape 'consensus reality' to another realm. It does, then we can ask of ourself how much real is the experience. We can doubt that Ramanujan met the goddess Amagiri, but we cannot doubt about his insight in the arithmetical reality. Sand thinks the visions are just a psychedelic trick and that the real value of psychedelics is in unshackling people from decades of psychological baggage so that they can re-evaluate their moral and social worth. OK. The one feeling that seems to get repeated more than any other is a feeling of greater empathy towards and understanding of other people and a more profound love for oneself, and that feeling, I think, stems from a greater appreciation of ones own fallibilty...self doubt. Yes, and that is of the kind already obtained by the introspective universal (Turing) machine. So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message We were arguing on definition implicitly, no one made a definite conclusion. Keep in mind that I refer often to the simplest theory of intelligence, life and all protagorean virtues. A machine is said idiot if she assert that a machine is idiot or if she asserts that a machine is intelligent. And a machine is said intelligent if she is not idiot. There is a bit of a joke here, as it is enough that some machine asserts I am idiot to know that she is idiot, but of course, we cannot assert it. Such theory admit a simple arithmetical interpetation as Dt (that is ~B ~f) obeys that axiomatic. I say that intelligence and the protagorean virtue (only taught by examples) are of the type Dt. Bruno From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:27:29 +0200 On 13 Aug 2015, at 13:15, Kim Jones wrote: OK - so the inability to be sure if someone is an idiot is just as fraught as trying to be sure that they are intelligent, I hear you say. I was saying that idiocy is easy to judge, but you can also deduce impossible to assert (of oneself or some-else). But we can see, and see from time to time, person behaving like idiots, even children! intelligence is often used for flattery or vanity. idiot is often use as an insult (usual with more vulgar synonyms). But it is better to not encapsulate people with such terms. Sometimes people believe it, making them into idiot in my protagorean sense. That will not help them. It refers to character, and I think it is related to some amount of attention from the parents, which get it from their parents, etc. Sounds like the ideal situation doesn't it! Tends to suggest that people rise only to the heights of their incompetence at understanding whether
Re: Idiot Test
On 14 Aug 2015, at 23:21, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au To: everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 2:11 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Idiocy only ever applies to other people, yes. It's like sexual perversion and corruption; these things are done only by others, never by me! Why I speak of the need for some fabled 'test' - a bit like Alice drinking from the bottle marked 'drink me'. Alice was no idiot. She had the fundamental human curiosity to suck it and see rather than fall back on some safer, less interactive approach. Perhaps idiots lack the curiosity to undergo some experience that will doubtlesly undermine their chosen weltanshauung. You can call me an idiot if you want but you would be using some other attribution criteria to the ones I am putting forward. Trouble is, if we ever really decided what constituted an idiot, there would soon be no more idiots because then we would have it nailed and could genuinely do something about it. Idiots, however, abound in society. It is more, as Bruno says, some willful act of denying something absurdly; a kind of mendacity. Furthermore, I do not consider someone an idiot who does not agree with me. That's where you have failed to take in the message, Chris. There are always alternatives, and the inability to take stock of them is where idiots reveal themselves. Actually, I don't go in search of agreement or disagreement. I prefer exploration and suspension of judgement. Explorers don't judge the terrain they explore; they create a map. I have changed my views several times over regarding core matters. Actually I find it rather easy to drop one set of ideas for another. For that reason, no one will ever catch me in the act of being certain about anything. Even about who the idiots are. Sure... there are always alternatives (or most of the time anyways) and idiocy is the mode of mind that becomes stuck in one explanation excluding all other possibility. Some would say stuck in a wrong explanation, as it might not ben so stupid to keep an explanation when it works. Now, technically, this is provably false in theoretical Artificial Intellligence as a machine able to change its mind, even when her explanation work, will recognize large classes of (computable) phenomena (by a result of Case Smith). But that concerns competence, and I like to distinguish it from intelligence which I see more like a protagorean virtue, obeying []p - ~p. My point is that we are all of susceptible to that idiotic mode and that it is vital therefore to always keep this in mind. We ourselves may be idiots at times (even if we think we are being brilliant). OK. I am not saying anything one way or another about you or anybody else in particular, merely cautioning everyone (including most of all myself) that idiocy is an insidious trap, which can creep up from within unnoticed and will often masquerade itself as being something entirely more intelligent. We must remain constantly vigilant about our own innate potential for slipping into idiotic mental frames; and only by recognizing this as a real and ever present potential existing within ourselves can we in fact remain vigilant. Yes, that works well with the protagorean thing. The slipping is always nearby. There are no algorithm to prevent it, but humans have good slogan and heuristics, like Hell is paved with good intention, turn your tongue seven times in your mouth before asserting something big, etc. Oops, I have to go, Bruno -Chris K On 15 Aug 2015, at 5:39 am, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have
Re: Idiot Test
Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence are not polar opposites. They walk hand in hand. Anyway - at a certain point in the presumably not too distant future, somebody WILL decide who all the idiots are - using whatever rationale - and they will all be eliminated. Probably by an AI who worked it out all by itself. So 2. Idiots usually end up designing technology that eventually destroys them and everyone else. So, it may be that such people also receive a Darwin Award for performing the inestimable service to the human race of removing their DNA from the gene pool. K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+ unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post
Re: Idiot Test
I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence are not polar opposites. They walk hand in hand. Anyway - at a certain point in the presumably not too distant future, somebody WILL decide who all the idiots are - using whatever rationale - and they will all be eliminated. Probably by an AI who worked it out all by itself. So 2. Idiots usually end up designing technology that eventually destroys them and everyone else. So, it may be that such people also receive a Darwin Award for performing the inestimable service to the human race of removing their DNA from the gene pool. K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
Idiocy only ever applies to other people, yes. It's like sexual perversion and corruption; these things are done only by others, never by me! Why I speak of the need for some fabled 'test' - a bit like Alice drinking from the bottle marked 'drink me'. Alice was no idiot. She had the fundamental human curiosity to suck it and see rather than fall back on some safer, less interactive approach. Perhaps idiots lack the curiosity to undergo some experience that will doubtlesly undermine their chosen weltanshauung. You can call me an idiot if you want but you would be using some other attribution criteria to the ones I am putting forward. Trouble is, if we ever really decided what constituted an idiot, there would soon be no more idiots because then we would have it nailed and could genuinely do something about it. Idiots, however, abound in society. It is more, as Bruno says, some willful act of denying something absurdly; a kind of mendacity. Furthermore, I do not consider someone an idiot who does not agree with me. That's where you have failed to take in the message, Chris. There are always alternatives, and the inability to take stock of them is where idiots reveal themselves. Actually, I don't go in search of agreement or disagreement. I prefer exploration and suspension of judgement. Explorers don't judge the terrain they explore; they create a map. I have changed my views several times over regarding core matters. Actually I find it rather easy to drop one set of ideas for another. For that reason, no one will ever catch me in the act of being certain about anything. Even about who the idiots are. K On 15 Aug 2015, at 5:39 am, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence are not polar opposites. They walk hand in hand. Anyway - at a certain point in the presumably not too distant future, somebody WILL decide who
Re: Idiot Test
From: spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 12:39 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. My contention is that idiocy is innate within us all and that to claim that one is immune to this mind trap is itself the height of idiocy. He/she who knows that only others can be idiots -- because of whatever -- is even more of an idiot than those who, while they may still be idiots (at times) are aware of this latent potential for idiocy extant within themselves.-Chris -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence are not polar opposites. They walk hand in hand. Anyway - at a certain point in the presumably not too distant future, somebody WILL decide who all the idiots are - using whatever rationale - and they will all be eliminated. Probably by an AI who worked it out all by itself. So 2. Idiots usually end up designing technology that eventually destroys them and everyone else. So, it may be that such people also receive a Darwin Award for performing the inestimable service to the human race of removing their DNA from the gene pool. K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+ unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything
Re: Idiot Test
From: Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au To: everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 2:11 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Idiocy only ever applies to other people, yes. It's like sexual perversion and corruption; these things are done only by others, never by me! Why I speak of the need for some fabled 'test' - a bit like Alice drinking from the bottle marked 'drink me'. Alice was no idiot. She had the fundamental human curiosity to suck it and see rather than fall back on some safer, less interactive approach. Perhaps idiots lack the curiosity to undergo some experience that will doubtlesly undermine their chosen weltanshauung. You can call me an idiot if you want but you would be using some other attribution criteria to the ones I am putting forward. Trouble is, if we ever really decided what constituted an idiot, there would soon be no more idiots because then we would have it nailed and could genuinely do something about it. Idiots, however, abound in society. It is more, as Bruno says, some willful act of denying something absurdly; a kind of mendacity. Furthermore, I do not consider someone an idiot who does not agree with me. That's where you have failed to take in the message, Chris. There are always alternatives, and the inability to take stock of them is where idiots reveal themselves. Actually, I don't go in search of agreement or disagreement. I prefer exploration and suspension of judgement. Explorers don't judge the terrain they explore; they create a map. I have changed my views several times over regarding core matters. Actually I find it rather easy to drop one set of ideas for another. For that reason, no one will ever catch me in the act of being certain about anything. Even about who the idiots are. Sure... there are always alternatives (or most of the time anyways) and idiocy is the mode of mind that becomes stuck in one explanation excluding all other possibility. My point is that we are all of susceptible to that idiotic mode and that it is vital therefore to always keep this in mind. We ourselves may be idiots at times (even if we think we are being brilliant). I am not saying anything one way or another about you or anybody else in particular, merely cautioning everyone (including most of all myself) that idiocy is an insidious trap, which can creep up from within unnoticed and will often masquerade itself as being something entirely more intelligent.We must remain constantly vigilant about our own innate potential for slipping into idiotic mental frames; and only by recognizing this as a real and ever present potential existing within ourselves can we in fact remain vigilant. -Chris K On 15 Aug 2015, at 5:39 am, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman
Re: Idiot Test
On 8/14/2015 2:11 PM, Kim Jones wrote: Idiocy only ever applies to other people, yes. It's like sexual perversion and corruption; these things are done only by others, never by me! Why I speak of the need for some fabled 'test' - a bit like Alice drinking from the bottle marked 'drink me'. Alice was no idiot. She had the fundamental human curiosity to suck it and see rather than fall back on some safer, less interactive approach. Perhaps idiots lack the curiosity to undergo some experience that will doubtlesly undermine their chosen weltanshauung. You can call me an idiot if you want but you would be using some other attribution criteria to the ones I am putting forward. Trouble is, if we ever really decided what constituted an idiot, there would soon be no more idiots because then we would have it nailed and could genuinely do something about it. Idiots, however, abound in society. It is more, as Bruno says, some willful act of denying something absurdly; a kind of mendacity. Furthermore, I do not consider someone an idiot who does not agree with me. That's where you have failed to take in the message, Chris. There are always alternatives, and the inability to take stock of them is where idiots reveal themselves. Actually, I don't go in search of agreement or disagreement. I prefer exploration and suspension of judgement. So you invented a test for idiocy and posted it online. LOL! Explorers don't judge the terrain they explore; they create a map. I have changed my views several times over regarding core matters. Actually I find it rather easy to drop one set of ideas for another. For that reason, no one will ever catch me in the act of being certain about anything. Even about who the idiots are. Or your own consistency. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Idiot Test
I agree with you there…. Idiocy is the quintessential equal opportunity provider – (in a nod to your politically fixated mindset) it thrives exuberant, on both the right and the left. Idiocy is in full reign amongst the elite in their gilded enclaves and in the grimy dirty dangerous graffiti hallways of the project slum. But it does not stop there, nor does it begin from there. Idiocy emerges from within, far, far closer to home.. to the self, the inner voice that asks the question… we are each of us within this home of homes. It is within these bounds that idiocy is hardest to perceive and harder to deal with. Case in point many very intelligent people are (in some dimension) veritable idiots within. A most natural outcome, of our brain/mind sensorial being… for to see within…. Where are the eyes to see within? We are oriented to see without; seeing within is largely an accidental exceptional occurrence and is not something that is easy for most of us to do. As a consequence we are usually most blind within our own selves. Intelligence is no defense against inner idiocy either, for idiocy is adept at burying itself beneath layers upon layers of justification heaped over bullshit. Idiocy tends to also lock in, becoming habitual behavior, existing in the (largely) unseen regions of mind… the crackling vastly parallel network… balanced on the edge of chaos.. this very noisy, reifying inner-verse of the mind, auto-catalyzed self-emergent being… emerging into our consciousness as an inner dialogue of the mind. Idiocy is a slippery eel; it is foolish to underestimate its ability to find a way in to the unseen within… it is difficult to grab hold of. -Chris From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 6:12 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test I simply feel it is hard to identify idiocy when it hits closer to home. In fact, as I stated, holding a certain position or opinion may not, in fact be idiotic at all. I sometimes feel, some days, that if idiocy were nirvana, I would be achieving my zen moment with it. On this forum, discussion-wise, yeah, we name call. I shrug this off as human nature, and am more interested in seeing if these conversations yield anything dramatically, interesting for me? -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 5:17 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test _ From: spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 12:39 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. My contention is that idiocy is innate within us all and that to claim that one is immune to this mind trap is itself the height of idiocy. He/she who knows that only others can be idiots -- because of whatever -- is even more of an idiot than those who, while they may still be idiots (at times) are aware of this latent potential for idiocy extant within themselves. -Chris -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So
Re: Idiot Test
I simply feel it is hard to identify idiocy when it hits closer to home. In fact, as I stated, holding a certain position or opinion may not, in fact be idiotic at all. I sometimes feel, some days, that if idiocy were nirvana, I would be achieving my zen moment with it. On this forum, discussion-wise, yeah, we name call. I shrug this off as human nature, and am more interested in seeing if these conversations yield anything dramatically, interesting for me? -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 5:17 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test From: spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, August 14, 2015 12:39 PM Subject: Re: Idiot Test Chris, when you can think of politicians and actors of your political preference, who behave idiotically: then you'd really be making a succinct point. The rationale being, if you agree with my position, thus, you are wonderful, but if you disagree, you are a moron. On this mailing list however, it ain't politics that drive the passion, but disagreeing with an equation, a precis,' a hypothesis. It's like on the show Big Bang, where blood in nearly, drawn, over whether String or Loop Quantum Gravity have the best explanation for reality, when as all right thinking people know, it's all explained by Chaotic Inflation. Easy peasy. My contention is that idiocy is innate within us all and that to claim that one is immune to this mind trap is itself the height of idiocy. He/she who knows that only others can be idiots -- because of whatever -- is even more of an idiot than those who, while they may still be idiots (at times) are aware of this latent potential for idiocy extant within themselves. -Chris -Original Message- From: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2015 1:42 pm Subject: Re: Idiot Test I am curious you seem to speak of idiots exclusively in terms of them of some other group of individuals. Do you consider yourself to be potentially an idiot or have you managed to achieve existential certainty that idiocy is something that only ever applies to other people? If you have achieved this certainty -- e.g. that in no possible way could you ever be an idiot; that is an amazing feat or could it be incontrovertible proof of your own idiocy? Any definition of idiocy that does't -- at least potentially -- include the self within the scope of its embrace is idotic - -IMO! P.S. -- I am suspecting that if you respond at all, you'll probably roast me with scorn, for having had the temerity to suggest that idiocy is something we are all capable of achieving; and that no one is immune from idiotic mind modes. -chris On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence
Re: Idiot Test
OK - so the inability to be sure if someone is an idiot is just as fraught as trying to be sure that they are intelligent, I hear you say. Sounds like the ideal situation doesn't it! Tends to suggest that people rise only to the heights of their incompetence at understanding whether they or others are intelligent or stupid! So we are all stupid and the sand on the beach is intelligent. This is becoming very Smullyan, this bit... So if we adopt your simple criteria of the repetition of stupidities as idiocy and the silence of the pebble as intelligence, it seems the human race is suffering a terrible toll of redundancy. I hope yours is in fact the correct definition because it means we can do something about the problem of latency with respect to the evolution of human consciousness. I mean - the idiots (if there be such) really are holding us back. They are in all the top jobs. They cannot not be idiots so where does that leave us? Flexibility and tolerance and reform are not supported by the mental software idiots use throughout their lives. I actually wasn't thinking of John Clark when I started this thread. It's amusing to me in the extreme that everyone thought that's what I was doing! John isn't an idiot. He's just taking a long time to understand. He'll get there. I love Bruno's patience with him. Nobody here is an idiot. Kim On 13 Aug 2015, at 8:02 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:42, meekerdb wrote: If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. It might be easy, for some class of beings. Perhaps, for the human, a simple criteria is simply being adult, and for a computer, being not yet programmed. Idiocy reveals itself by, not the mistake, but by the more or less systematic repetition of them, and the inability to change its mind, despite evidences. Denying evidence is also a common symptom. Then, obviously with the theory I gave, asserting one own intelligence, or one own idiocy is a (local) symptom. Asserting one own Intelligence/Idiocy can be replaced with asserting someone else intelligence/idiocy. Saying that Einstein is intelligent is either a cliché or a way to assert one's own intelligence. In fact idolatry, and uncritical attitude with respect to the boss, or anyone, even a God, is also a symptom of idiocy/cowardliness. But there is no criteria for intelligence, except that with the definition taken, keeping silence is a sort of local quasi-criteria (making pebble intelligent, but why not as they rarely utters stupidities). Bruno Brent On 8/11/2015 4:06 PM, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group.
Re: Idiot Test
On 13 Aug 2015, at 01:06, chris peck wrote: Here's a thread with all the list's alpha-male geniuses mocking someone. Here's me, the village idiot, convinced they all pass their own idiot test with flying colours. lol. Looks you are the one mocking others, ... lol. I mean if the test involves understanding the implications of psychedelic drugs then you all just failed to do that. A monumental fail to Kim and Bruno, particularly. There's absolutely bugger-all metaphysically that people who have taken these drugs can agree on. Sod Salvia, even DMT and the mighty 5meo-DMT fail to deliver a consistent metaphysical message to those who take it, and 'psycho- nauts' effectively fall into two camps with Strassman-ites on the one hand claiming these drugs open the mind to real alien hyper- spaces (roll eyes), and the Sand-ites on the other believing they are just tools to explore one's own mind. But there's no consensus. There is no consensus on themundane experience too. Once there are experience, we can only have partial consensus. Now, I know better salvia than DMT, and the resemblance of the experience is striking. It goes like -30% feel the feminine presence (called lady D, or virgin Maria, etc..). -75% feel the rotation/vortex -67% feel the alternate reality/realities -10% feel the copy/reset effect -49% feel the home effect, etc. From a personal statistics based on the Erowid reports and the persons I have been a sitter for. How to interpret those effect is difficult, and will depends already if the base theory is Aristotelian or Platonist (and as I said, there is no consensus for the mundane observable realty). Many people feels, with salvia, that the mundane picture is interrogated and are less sure of their preceding thought on the subject. If there is any general consensus about psychedelics it is a psychological/moral one. That we should have a healthy sense of self- doubt about our own convictions. I hope so, but it is frequent that some people believe a plant, like other would believe a government. Here salvia seems peculiar in the sense that whatever way you interpret an experience, the next one will refute the interpretation. It is almost like a logical diagonalization. With salvia there is two parts in the experience: first the carnival/ magic-garden, where the plant do a lot of theatrical stuff perhaps to impress the beginners, and very often to deter them to go farer: to make them realize that they are not ready. Then, secondly, the breakthrough which is beyond words, and plausibly well the same for everybody (and provably so if the Galois connection comp theory of dissociation is correct (where the brain is a filter of consciousness, because we eventually identify ourself with a very small type of (universal or sub-universal) routine in arithmetic (but it is just a theory)). You guys are half way there with a healthy sense of doubt about everyone elses convictions but none for your own. That seems just gratuitous. beyond being conscious roght now, I am not sure I have a conviction, and still less that I would make it public. In fact the salvia report is close to many mystic report, and indeed the big lesson of such experience is the learning of different (rational) way to conceive reality. It opens the mind, and when done seriously, it enlarge the range of the doubts. From just the reports it seems that salvia is much more efficacious than the drug on the DMT family, which looks often like intense magic-garden with no obvious breakthrough. Of course there is abig debate between salvia and DMT experiencers on this question. Concerning idiocy, I think it is a state of mind, close to cowardliness, perhaps due to lack of attention and encouragement of parents or people around you in the childhood. As a teacher, I have observed that in general, student who fails have parents who treats them as stupid. That state of mind can change in a second, but sometimes some shock can help (be it a war, a drug, an accident, a near death experience, a dream, etc.). It can change in the two directions, and the most intelligent *can* soon make or assert the biggest stupidity, all the time. Bruno Are you sure you weren't just chewing mint? From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:21:19 +0200 On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:06, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic
Re: Idiot Test
On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:42, meekerdb wrote: If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. It might be easy, for some class of beings. Perhaps, for the human, a simple criteria is simply being adult, and for a computer, being not yet programmed. Idiocy reveals itself by, not the mistake, but by the more or less systematic repetition of them, and the inability to change its mind, despite evidences. Denying evidence is also a common symptom. Then, obviously with the theory I gave, asserting one own intelligence, or one own idiocy is a (local) symptom. Asserting one own Intelligence/Idiocy can be replaced with asserting someone else intelligence/idiocy. Saying that Einstein is intelligent is either a cliché or a way to assert one's own intelligence. In fact idolatry, and uncritical attitude with respect to the boss, or anyone, even a God, is also a symptom of idiocy/cowardliness. But there is no criteria for intelligence, except that with the definition taken, keeping silence is a sort of local quasi-criteria (making pebble intelligent, but why not as they rarely utters stupidities). Bruno Brent On 8/11/2015 4:06 PM, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
On 13 Aug 2015, at 13:15, Kim Jones wrote: OK - so the inability to be sure if someone is an idiot is just as fraught as trying to be sure that they are intelligent, I hear you say. I was saying that idiocy is easy to judge, but you can also deduce impossible to assert (of oneself or some-else). But we can see, and see from time to time, person behaving like idiots, even children! intelligence is often used for flattery or vanity. idiot is often use as an insult (usual with more vulgar synonyms). But it is better to not encapsulate people with such terms. Sometimes people believe it, making them into idiot in my protagorean sense. That will not help them. It refers to character, and I think it is related to some amount of attention from the parents, which get it from their parents, etc. Sounds like the ideal situation doesn't it! Tends to suggest that people rise only to the heights of their incompetence at understanding whether they or others are intelligent or stupid! So we are all stupid and the sand on the beach is intelligent. This is becoming very Smullyan, this bit... So if we adopt your simple criteria of the repetition of stupidities as idiocy and the silence of the pebble as intelligence, it seems the human race is suffering a terrible toll of redundancy. I hope yours is in fact the correct definition because it means we can do something about the problem of latency with respect to the evolution of human consciousness. I mean - the idiots (if there be such) really are holding us back. They are in all the top jobs. They are more dishonest than idiots, I think, a bit like we can suspect John Clark to be when reading some of its post (where we see he got the point, but still deny it or mock it). We might put dishonesty in idiocy. I don't know if this would be useful. Robbing a bank does not really look like a mistake, even if it makes money mistakenly representing work. That's a whole debate. They cannot not be idiots so where does that leave us? Flexibility and tolerance and reform are not supported by the mental software idiots use throughout their lives. But that is normal, given our long evolution. At least we have a big cortex making us able to do reasoning and thought experiences ... Insects are much more wired, but that does not make them necessarily idiots. It take a lot of neurons and reflexive ability to be an idiot, and the more we are intelligent, the bigger we can be idiot. Intelligence and idiocy are not that much in opposition. They always come together. May be the human are the most idiot among the animals, as few animals say so much stupidities for so long, believe in fairy tales, and cut the head of those who don't, etc. But the human grandeur is that he can be aware of this, and try to do something (which often aggravates the case, as it is not easy). Bruno I actually wasn't thinking of John Clark when I started this thread. It's amusing to me in the extreme that everyone thought that's what I was doing! John isn't an idiot. He's just taking a long time to understand. He'll get there. I love Bruno's patience with him. Nobody here is an idiot. Kim On 13 Aug 2015, at 8:02 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:42, meekerdb wrote: If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. It might be easy, for some class of beings. Perhaps, for the human, a simple criteria is simply being adult, and for a computer, being not yet programmed. Idiocy reveals itself by, not the mistake, but by the more or less systematic repetition of them, and the inability to change its mind, despite evidences. Denying evidence is also a common symptom. Then, obviously with the theory I gave, asserting one own intelligence, or one own idiocy is a (local) symptom. Asserting one own Intelligence/Idiocy can be replaced with asserting someone else intelligence/idiocy. Saying that Einstein is intelligent is either a cliché or a way to assert one's own intelligence. In fact idolatry, and uncritical attitude with respect to the boss, or anyone, even a God, is also a symptom of idiocy/cowardliness. But there is no criteria for intelligence, except that with the definition taken, keeping silence is a sort of local quasi-criteria (making pebble intelligent, but why not as they rarely utters stupidities). Bruno Brent On 8/11/2015 4:06 PM, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in
RE: Idiot Test
Once there are experience, we can only have partial consensus. Now, I know better salvia than DMT, and the resemblance of the experience is striking. It goes like -30% feel the feminine presence (called lady D, or virgin Maria, etc..). -75% feel the rotation/vortex -67% feel the alternate reality/realities -10% feel the copy/reset effect -49% feel the home effect, etc. These are not the kind of 'metaphysical messages' I was referring to. These are just phenomena that similar physical systems perturbed by the same physical substance might be expected to experience. Take the rotation/vortex. Theres no question its an impressive sight and far from being ephemeral seems utterly immersive and made of physical stuff. On weaker psychedelics you get a hint of it, but with DMT or high doses of Psilocybin etc, you are thrown into the vortex as if it were as real as any perception of the real world. On the one hand you could imagine that you are genuinely travelling through an alien geometry and architecture, and many people who 'smoalk' do. On the other hand you might conclude that the neural apparatus of perception is just being tickled in the same way by the same chemical, and many people who 'smoalk' think that instead. The fact that the imagery can be accounted for and predicted could be evidence for a brute identity theory. https://plus.maths.org/content/uncoiling-spiral-maths-and-hallucinations The point being that the brute phenomena itself doesn't lend itself easily to one conclusion or its opposite. Strassman thinks DMT allows the mind to escape 'consensus reality' to another realm. Sand thinks the visions are just a psychedelic trick and that the real value of psychedelics is in unshackling people from decades of psychological baggage so that they can re-evaluate their moral and social worth. The one feeling that seems to get repeated more than any other is a feeling of greater empathy towards and understanding of other people and a more profound love for oneself, and that feeling, I think, stems from a greater appreciation of ones own fallibilty...self doubt. So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:27:29 +0200 On 13 Aug 2015, at 13:15, Kim Jones wrote: OK - so the inability to be sure if someone is an idiot is just as fraught as trying to be sure that they are intelligent, I hear you say. I was saying that idiocy is easy to judge, but you can also deduce impossible to assert (of oneself or some-else). But we can see, and see from time to time, person behaving like idiots, even children! intelligence is often used for flattery or vanity.idiot is often use as an insult (usual with more vulgar synonyms). But it is better to not encapsulate people with such terms. Sometimes people believe it, making them into idiot in my protagorean sense. That will not help them. It refers to character, and I think it is related to some amount of attention from the parents, which get it from their parents, etc. Sounds like the ideal situation doesn't it! Tends to suggest that people rise only to the heights of their incompetence at understanding whether they or others are intelligent or stupid! So we are all stupid and the sand on the beach is intelligent. This is becoming very Smullyan, this bit... So if we adopt your simple criteria of the repetition of stupidities as idiocy and the silence of the pebble as intelligence, it seems the human race is suffering a terrible toll of redundancy. I hope yours is in fact the correct definition because it means we can do something about the problem of latency with respect to the evolution of human consciousness. I mean - the idiots (if there be such) really are holding us back. They are in all the top jobs. They are more dishonest than idiots, I think, a bit like we can suspect John Clark to be when reading some of its post (where we see he got the point, but still deny it or mock it). We might put dishonesty in idiocy. I don't know if this would be useful. Robbing a bank does not really look like a mistake, even if it makes money mistakenly representing work. That's a whole debate. They cannot not be idiots so where does that leave us? Flexibility and tolerance and reform are not supported by the mental software idiots use throughout their lives. But that is normal, given our long evolution. At least we have a big cortex making us able to do reasoning and thought experiences ... Insects are much more wired, but that does not make them necessarily idiots. It take a lot of neurons and reflexive ability to be an idiot, and the more we are intelligent
Re: Idiot Test
On 14 Aug 2015, at 8:21 am, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: So, to cut to the chase, when a thread appears claiming the benefit of a psychedelic is to work out who the idiots are, when it is suggested that the substance be used in such a miserly way, I can't help but feel the people suggesting that are the ones who have missed the message I think Strassman was right. You need a certain substance in your system to be even able to conceive of thinking without some limiting effect of consensus. The human mind has a 'native' behaviour and we might refer to this as 'baseline consciousness'. It is merely a starting point in the enterprise of exploring the terrain of consciousness. The Idiot Test is a cynical exercise, you seemed to have missed that. It's a cartoon in words designed to focus on something sinister; either a lie or a form of stupidity. A thought bubble as we say nowadays. Just one grade better than a silly poster on Facebook. The term 'idiot' is a pejorative, so we do need another word to cover the concept the lack of imagination to envisage alternatives to the one currently held under any scenario which to my mind at least, does sound rather mentally deficient. But I learnt a lot from Bruno's breakdown of it. Idiocy and Intelligence are not polar opposites. They walk hand in hand. Anyway - at a certain point in the presumably not too distant future, somebody WILL decide who all the idiots are - using whatever rationale - and they will all be eliminated. Probably by an AI who worked it out all by itself. So 2. Idiots usually end up designing technology that eventually destroys them and everyone else. So, it may be that such people also receive a Darwin Award for performing the inestimable service to the human race of removing their DNA from the gene pool. K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Idiot Test
Here's a thread with all the list's alpha-male geniuses mocking someone. Here's me, the village idiot, convinced they all pass their own idiot test with flying colours. lol. I mean if the test involves understanding the implications of psychedelic drugs then you all just failed to do that. A monumental fail to Kim and Bruno, particularly. There's absolutely bugger-all metaphysically that people who have taken these drugs can agree on. Sod Salvia, even DMT and the mighty 5meo-DMT fail to deliver a consistent metaphysical message to those who take it, and 'psycho-nauts' effectively fall into two camps with Strassman-ites on the one hand claiming these drugs open the mind to real alien hyper-spaces (roll eyes), and the Sand-ites on the other believing they are just tools to explore one's own mind. But there's no consensus. If there is any general consensus about psychedelics it is a psychological/moral one. That we should have a healthy sense of self-doubt about our own convictions. You guys are half way there with a healthy sense of doubt about everyone elses convictions but none for your own. Are you sure you weren't just chewing mint? From: marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Idiot Test Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:21:19 +0200 On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:06, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. Absolute public certainties is madness. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. Idiocy is only an unfortunate self-destructive type of mentality. Most idiot are actually just wounded people, but in this case, knowing that thus not necessarily help. (Keep in mind that I distinguish intelligent from competent, and thus idiot from incompetent. Competence is domain dependent and can be evaluated by test or exams. Idiocy and Intelligence does not admit definition, and we can agree, or not, on some axiomatics. And I like to interpret Dt, that is ~Bf, by intelligent and Bf by idiot. You can read Bf by I assert stupiditiesGödel's second theorem becomes: If I don't assert stupidities then I don't assert that I don't assert stupidities. Intelligence is the mother of all protagorean virtues, which cannot be tought by words but only with example, and typically when you assert them about yourself you kill them, and when you assert the negation, you aggravate your case.Modesty, or humity of scientific-mindness are important virtue which are not protogorean, although they can have protagorean interpretation. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. I am not sure that there exists something or someone like a certified public idiot. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. I don't believe that exist, but emotions can make people behaving like idiot and indeed it typically last. It is the problem of the lies. The longer time a person lie, the harder it is to admit it, and the graver the consequence *can* be. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. I don't know David Icke. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. I will think about that. It is complex, and dangerous because it is both counter-intuitive, and probably in the G* minus G part. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail
Re: Idiot Test
On the drug thing, especially with DMT, users were supposed to communicate with
bouncing balls, giant mantises, metallic robots, and humanoid ambulatory trees.
Well, Terrence Mckenna told some interesting tales about his dmt visions, but
after years of people doodling with their brains, using dmt, ayahuasca,
mescalin, and lsd, no such repeat visions, by other users were achieved.
Non-repeatability, for me, is a tip-off that this was one man's clever
writings, and not a true transcendental phenomena (if such really exists). On
the other hand, being an evil, old, fart, I still admit to liking the ancient
acid rock tune, In-a-gadda-davida, by the Iron Butterfly 1967. Be warned, this
tune was initiated by california red wine and not psilocybin! The songwriter
was attempting to sing, In the garden of eden, but was phonetically, impaired
because of the california red. News you can't use!!!
Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
-Original Message-
From: chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, Aug 12, 2015 07:06 PM
Subject: RE: Idiot Test
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black;} .aolReplacedBody .aolmail_hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px }
.aolReplacedBody body.aolmail_hmmessage { font-size: 12pt; font-family:Calibri
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Here's a thread with all the list's alpha-male geniuses mocking someone. Here's
me, the village idiot, convinced they all pass their own idiot test with flying
colours. lol.
I mean if the test involves understanding the implications of psychedelic drugs
then you all just failed to do that. A monumental fail to Kim and Bruno,
particularly. There's absolutely bugger-all metaphysically that people who have
taken these drugs can agree on. Sod Salvia, even DMT and the mighty 5meo-DMT
fail to deliver a consistent metaphysical message to those who take it, and
'psycho-nauts' effectively fall into two camps with Strassman-ites on the one
hand claiming these drugs open the mind to real alien hyper-spaces (roll eyes),
and the Sand-ites on the other believing they are just tools to explore one's
own mind. But there's no consensus.
If there is any general consensus about psychedelics it is a
psychological/moral one. That we should have a healthy sense of self-doubt
about our own convictions.
You guys are half way there with a healthy sense of doubt about everyone elses
convictions but none for your own.
Are you sure you weren't just chewing mint?
hr id=aolmail_stopSpellingFrom: a
href=mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be;marc...@ulb.ac.be/a
To: a
href=mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;everything-list@googlegroups.com/a
Subject: Re: Idiot Test
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:21:19 +0200
div
div
On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:06, Kim Jones wrote:
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blockquote
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blockquote
div
On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal
a target=_blank
href=mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be;marc...@ulb.ac.be/a wrote:
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No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure
of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in
anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more
ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before.
div
style=font-family:HelveticaNeue;font-size:24px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;
/div
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Bruno
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Re: Idiot Test
On 12 Aug 2015, at 01:06, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. Absolute public certainties is madness. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. Idiocy is only an unfortunate self-destructive type of mentality. Most idiot are actually just wounded people, but in this case, knowing that thus not necessarily help. (Keep in mind that I distinguish intelligent from competent, and thus idiot from incompetent. Competence is domain dependent and can be evaluated by test or exams. Idiocy and Intelligence does not admit definition, and we can agree, or not, on some axiomatics. And I like to interpret Dt, that is ~Bf, by intelligent and Bf by idiot. You can read Bf by I assert stupidities Gödel's second theorem becomes: If I don't assert stupidities then I don't assert that I don't assert stupidities. Intelligence is the mother of all protagorean virtues, which cannot be tought by words but only with example, and typically when you assert them about yourself you kill them, and when you assert the negation, you aggravate your case. Modesty, or humity of scientific-mindness are important virtue which are not protogorean, although they can have protagorean interpretation. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. I am not sure that there exists something or someone like a certified public idiot. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. I don't believe that exist, but emotions can make people behaving like idiot and indeed it typically last. It is the problem of the lies. The longer time a person lie, the harder it is to admit it, and the graver the consequence *can* be. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. I don't know David Icke. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. I will think about that. It is complex, and dangerous because it is both counter-intuitive, and probably in the G* minus G part. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. If he enjoys himself he might not just be idiot, but dishonest, which is far graver. It is complex. And the machine protagorean theory is much too rough here, and easily misunderstood, indeed morally. Platonist likes to relate truth, goodness, beautifulness, intelligence, ... though. Bruno 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: Idiot Test
On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
Oh I'd enjoy that test! :) But I'd enjoy even more administering it to John Clarke. I suspect I already know the result however. On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 10:09:42 AM UTC+10, Kim Jones wrote: OK - perhaps this post is not entirely serious. I don't actually know. There appears to be no reliable test of idiocy. Even people who invite others to participate in games of running along a lawn while a drone fires rockets at them may not actually qualify, ultimately, as idiots. It may be that the true definition of an idiot (in the theological, not medical sense) is one who is incorrigible in their beliefs. If you never change your mind, why have one? The hallmark of a true idiot is one who never admits they are wrong about something even in the face of massive counterfactual evidence and the weight of opinion thrown against them. So what, I hear you say. Idiots clearly exist. Trouble is, we need this test as I said above. You don't want idiots in government you don't want idiots as scientists and you certainly don't want idiots running your local church. On the basis of this argument you would, for example, still want to keep drugs illegal - for idiots. Anyone who could reliably prove they were not an idiot could still use drugs. Idiots get orange juice and huge injections of vitamins. Or something. The test would therefore be to administer a standard dose of Salvia Divinorum after which the person would be interviewed. The box marked 'idiot' would be ticked in the case where the subject maintained with the same or increased fervour, the beliefs they held prior to taking the test. Those who come through the experience with changed or clearly modified beliefs would be classed as normal. Obviously the people conducting the interview would be 'normal'. Any takers? Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL Email: kimj...@ozemail.com.au javascript: kmjc...@icloud.com javascript: Mobile: 0450 963 719 Phone: 02 93894239 Web: http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com *I'm not saying there aren't a lot of dangerous people out there. I am saying a lot of them are in government - Russell Brand* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
On 11 Aug 2015, at 02:09, Kim Jones wrote: OK - perhaps this post is not entirely serious. I don't actually know. There appears to be no reliable test of idiocy. Even people who invite others to participate in games of running along a lawn while a drone fires rockets at them may not actually qualify, ultimately, as idiots. It may be that the true definition of an idiot (in the theological, not medical sense) is one who is incorrigible in their beliefs. If you never change your mind, why have one? The hallmark of a true idiot is one who never admits they are wrong about something even in the face of massive counterfactual evidence and the weight of opinion thrown against them. So what, I hear you say. Idiots clearly exist. Idiot, in a general sense, are those who believe they are not idiot, or not intelligent and assert it. They might be unable to say I was wrong because they might believe that intelligent being cannot be wrong, which is of course an idiot thing to say. Basically, idiocy is the adult state. Only kids are intelligent, and it is only recent that evolution invests in long childhood period? Trouble is, we need this test as I said above. You don't want idiots in government you don't want idiots as scientists and you certainly don't want idiots running your local church. On the basis of this argument you would, for example, still want to keep drugs illegal - for idiots. Anyone who could reliably prove they were not an idiot could still use drugs. Idiots get orange juice and huge injections of vitamins. Or something. But idiocy is a more a mind attitude. It can change in a second, but some people needs shock. Then there is the confusion between intelligence and competence. Competence can make a person idiot has he get the state of mind I am superior as I am more competent than my fellow, which is an idiocy (in the sense above). Competence can make intelligence sleepy. People can become idiot just because their parents treats them as if they were idiot, or intelligent. idiocy, fundamentally, is more an insult, for what is fundamentally a lack of trust (in God, in oneself, ...). The test would therefore be to administer a standard dose of Salvia Divinorum after which the person would be interviewed. I am not sure that would be ethical. Salvia is an incognito suicide. Making someone taking salvia without his consent might be considered as a murder. We don't come back from salvia. Someone else comes back, and reappropiate your memories, and idiosyncracies. Only the universal person survives, so you don't die if you identify yourself to the universal person, but then you known since eternity and beyond that you are immortal. The box marked 'idiot' would be ticked in the case where the subject maintained with the same or increased fervour, the beliefs they held prior to taking the test. Those who come through the experience with changed or clearly modified beliefs would be classed as normal. Hmm... Somtimes people will not change their mind because they already knew. With salvia, you will no test if someone is idiot or not, you will kill the person, and the higher self will take its place. No change of mind can be said to occur, as there has been a change of person (little ego), only the universal person remains invariant. (I know you are joking, and thinking about how helping John Clark), but I am not sure I wish a salvia experience to him, and we can expect problem if he really believed what he says, which actually I am not sure at all, but who knows. Obviously the people conducting the interview would be 'normal'. Any takers? John Clark seems open to the falsity of physicalism, so he might not be too much shocked by the dream argument with a vengeance brought by the salvia experience. That might even help him to abandon his childish harassment activity. But then I really don't know. I have become good at predicting if people will do a good or bad trip, but most are a bit shocked by the experience, even the good trippers, who enjoy it, (but never do it again, though). Salvia has helped me to realize that I was underestimating the lack of spiritual lucidity of today. People who have never doubted by themselves the nature of reality, and who really take matter for granted, can get a big shock with salvia. But then they are shocked by the consequence of computationalism, Quantum mechanics, etc. For some people, salvia just create a new fear: it annihilates the fear of death, but then; as there does not look like anything everwritten, they get the fear of the afterlife and realize than the idea death is an end was, after all, oure wishful thinking. Things are far more subtle when we undergo the salvia hallucination. It is common with mystical experience: it eliminates the fear of death, but it can take much more spiritual digging to
Re: Idiot Test
On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:55, Pierz wrote: Oh I'd enjoy that test! :) But I'd enjoy even more administering it to John Clarke. I suspect I already know the result however. I agree, but it is not entirely obvious, as I think John C does not lie to himself, only to us. Sometimes, I am not sure though. Would he be sincere in its critical post, then I guess he would react *very* badly to salvia. I am still open that his idiocy is 100% fake. It is only bad faith illustration. He might make a good experience (and then say sorry to us). No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 10:09:42 AM UTC+10, Kim Jones wrote: OK - perhaps this post is not entirely serious. I don't actually know. There appears to be no reliable test of idiocy. Even people who invite others to participate in games of running along a lawn while a drone fires rockets at them may not actually qualify, ultimately, as idiots. It may be that the true definition of an idiot (in the theological, not medical sense) is one who is incorrigible in their beliefs. If you never change your mind, why have one? The hallmark of a true idiot is one who never admits they are wrong about something even in the face of massive counterfactual evidence and the weight of opinion thrown against them. So what, I hear you say. Idiots clearly exist. Trouble is, we need this test as I said above. You don't want idiots in government you don't want idiots as scientists and you certainly don't want idiots running your local church. On the basis of this argument you would, for example, still want to keep drugs illegal - for idiots. Anyone who could reliably prove they were not an idiot could still use drugs. Idiots get orange juice and huge injections of vitamins. Or something. The test would therefore be to administer a standard dose of Salvia Divinorum after which the person would be interviewed. The box marked 'idiot' would be ticked in the case where the subject maintained with the same or increased fervour, the beliefs they held prior to taking the test. Those who come through the experience with changed or clearly modified beliefs would be classed as normal. Obviously the people conducting the interview would be 'normal'. Any takers? Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL Email: kimj...@ozemail.com.au kmjc...@icloud.com Mobile: 0450 963 719 Phone: 02 93894239 Web: http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com I'm not saying there aren't a lot of dangerous people out there. I am saying a lot of them are in government - Russell Brand -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
On 12 Aug 2015, at 9:42 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. Brent You, sir - are no one’s idiot. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
If you think you have a sure fire way to identify an idiot...it's you. Brent On 8/11/2015 4:06 PM, Kim Jones wrote: On 11 Aug 2015, at 10:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: No doubt that it would be interesting to look at. Salvia has been called a cure of ... atheism (the non agnostic one 'course). Not that it makes you believe in anything new, it just shows reasons to doubt more, and to recognize we are more ignorant that we would have been able to conceive before. Bruno Well, that’s it, surely. The Idiot Test administered in this way has as a basic assumption that only what might be called The True Public Idiot is by nature incapable of changing or modifying his stated beliefs. A hallmark of idiocy is absolute certainty. In this light, Richard Dawkins for example, qualifies pretty much as a TPI. The other thing about this possible theological definition of ‘idiocy’ is: you will never meet an idiot who thinks the test was run fairly. This person has to accept that there is now an institution-backed sanction against them due to someone ticking a box marked ‘idiot’ next to their name. Still, they can justify themselves by saying how ‘in the past’ they changed their mind over certain matters when people whose opinions they could respect convinced them otherwise. You might like to check this assertion by interviewing his mother or sister instead. You will never, therefore, catch a certified public idiot in the act of changing his beliefs. This is because he has never changed his beliefs in the past and will never in the future - not because you are unlucky in the matter of catching him at it. The ticking of the box marked ‘idiot’ is a truly serious business. True (ie incorrigible) Public Idiots are actually quite rare. Even David Icke had to kind of admit that he probably wasn’t the reincarnation of JC…proving therefore that he was capable of recognising the lie he was telling himself. This leads to further refinements of the concept: 1. An idiot is one who lies about core matters - but only to himself. Others long since realised he enjoys playing this game with himself and that any other setup would entail him in ceasing to enjoy the game. 2. ?? Please feel free to add your own refinement. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:55 AM, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: Oh I'd enjoy that test! :) But I'd enjoy even more administering it to John Clarke. I suspect I already know the result however. Idiot or not at least John Clark knows how to spell his last name. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Idiot Test
On Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 10:51:37 AM UTC+10, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 4:55 AM, Pierz pie...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Oh I'd enjoy that test! :) But I'd enjoy even more administering it to John Clarke. I suspect I already know the result however. Idiot or not at least John Clark knows how to spell his last name. Apologies. Actually you may recall I said I know you're not stupid. But by Kim's definition I guess that doesn't save you from possibly being an idiot. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
