Dr. Philip Goff, Will Academia Get Beyond Materialism? |409|

What is the is mid point between knowing you have done a good job and not really giving a toss about it beyond a justified sense of of personal satisfaction?

That is a great question. Is there a middle point between our socially compliant displays of humility and irritating (in context) manifestations of one's accomplishments? I do not think the question is as immediately salient as one might imagine at first blush.

Let me explain. For some insane reason, in our Wikipedia World, if we for instance are engaged in a dispute about how celestial navigation works, a person who actually is a celestial navigator and has employed it to sail around the world is supposed to keep silent about this during the discussion. The fact that they have first hand experience, renders them now inadmissible as a participant, in the eyes of the Wiki-faker. One must either cite an academic reference, or employ rhetoric as their argument artifice. All material must come from official (and of course suitably humble) sources. In other words, highly conflict-of-interest induced, academia. (Hence the business apothegm "Those who cannot do, teach.")

This social principle is exactly the reason why we are huddled into a small forum here today. Fakers, posing in retail store mannequin humility, inside an integral miasma of lack in genuineness. This 'displacement of the genuine/first hand' bears the negative outcome of social pressure to conform, and results in a high degree of ignorance with regard to many critical or foundational subjects such as spirituality and man's origins.

My point was that the ASD person, despite being an annoyance, is genuine if anything. I suppose La Rochefoucauld's point, and I agree with this, is not to be consumed over where others fall upon this pride-fake humility spectrum, as it was to encourage focus upon a person's genuineness. That falls along a different continuum. It is very easy to cast and portray a humble person in a movie - but very difficult to cast and portray a genuine person. The reason is precisely because the former can be play-acted, while the latter usually can not.

A 'humble' person who uses the social perception of humility to mock in punishment, is not genuine... it is a form of a most intense, quiet, seething, extreme in pride. La Rochefoucauld Pride. Humility is displayed in how one instinctively treats others (watch for the subtleties of the 'act'), and not in how one appears to regard self.
 
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I haven’t really got the time for this collection of unreferenced claims... Which neither balances against the benefits of the product (risk/benefit), nor compares against other products on the market (thereby missing the point entirely).

You asked me what risks were known. These are known as risks by more than half the global professional and scientific community (across trade/famine/health disciplines inside of which I have done strategy for decades).

You did not ask me to portray a risk/benefit analysis. So I did not 'miss the point entirely'.

Please refer to my last post immediately above. Your response is rhetorically ad hoc. I would encourage you, knowing that you are a smart and balanced thinker, to be competent on both the benefits of this class of accelerant/desiccant (and there are indeed benefits ;;/?), as well as its risks - and maintain an awareness, that the same tactics which squelch the message of this forum, are the ones used to squelch argument against this monopoly-market-tech (and the same people do it curiously).

I can do a rigorous assay of the benefits as well :) - and just finsihed a conference call now where I want a shipment of pulses split-tested (parallel controlled trial), one consigned with no glyphosate, and anther consigned with glyphosate - to ship from the same origin to the same consuming buyer along the same routes and modes. This will be a great test. The market is the best lab of all.
 
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The fact that they have first hand experience, renders them now inadmissible as a participant, in the eyes of the Wiki-faker. One must either cite an academic reference, or employ rhetoric as their argument artifice.

This is a compelling observation. I found this when I was writing my Masters Honours thesis. As an experiencer of paranormal phenomena I was my own authority. I had to employ an autoethnographic methodology that I took very seriously. Self writing is a bugger to do well and convincingly. Mercifully there was sufficient credible academic foundation to allow me to "cite the academic reference" at the methodology stage and ignore it thereafter. However I was still under an obligation to cite academic references, but under no obligation to agree with them. I just had to demonstrate I had read the material - and what better way than to argue against it?

The admissibility of personal experience is an issue only in a culture riven by discord about what is real and good. This means that Western culture is particular prone to discounting personal experience because of the twin tyrannies of Christianity and Materialism - both of which essentially deny the validity of the paranormal/supernatural. It might seem strange to assert that Christianity denies the supernatural, but it you look carefully at the faith's history it became materialistic before the atheists arrived on the scene. The transition as not as wild as we are led to suppose. Way more a whimper than a bang.

I want to defend Wikipedia. Its very nature means it is vulnerable to liars and politically motivate fruitcakes. It is predicated on a preponderance of good will and intellectual integrity. Sadly that aligns with the liberty of idiot liars to misrepresent truth. But the same is true in many media. Even the sainted Britannica, in my view, hosts the lies of materialists. The difference between Wikipedia and Britannica is really a difference about firewalls and who permits the lies to be posted and protect. Here I am with Wikipedia. The contestability of content posting is better than the fixed assertions of the supposedly 'respectable' authorities. At least the 'truth' might be posted until some anti-truther vigilante converts its to lies in a really childish way.

Rupert Sheldrake observed that his CV on Wikipedia was constantly interfered with to make seem less credible. That's really sad fuck immaturity. But the price of having genuine collaboration in updating entries is that you allow the adult children into rampage with their sad delusions. Not enough people understand what Wikipedia is about, and that's a deep misfortune - to be branded by idiot childish distortions as if that were the norm.
 
... twin tyrannies of Christianity and Materialism

Who was it who called Science (the body) and Religion 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria?' Stephen Jay Gould? I think they overlap about 90%.

D7cuaN_W4AIBN1K


This is why I do not claim to represent science. Rather, curious passion, discipline, a nose for deception, experience in solving mystery, a heart for those at risk, and an understanding of the ethical philosophy underpinning the search for knowledge.

Rupert Sheldrake observed that his CV on Wikipedia was constantly interfered with to make seem less credible. That's really sad fuck immaturity.

It is a love-hate relationship. I use Wikipedia for base facts, but neither trust it nor employ it for logical truths or information on any embargoed subject or person.
 
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I want to defend Wikipedia. Its very nature means it is vulnerable to liars and politically motivate fruitcakes. It is predicated on a preponderance of good will and intellectual integrity. Sadly that aligns with the liberty of idiot liars to misrepresent truth. But the same is true in many media. Even the sainted Britannica, in my view, hosts the lies of materialists. The difference between Wikipedia and Britannica is really a difference about firewalls and who permits the lies to be posted and protect. Here I am with Wikipedia. The contestability of content posting is better than the fixed assertions of the supposedly 'respectable' authorities. At least the 'truth' might be posted until some anti-truther vigilante converts its to lies in a really childish way.
That incidentally, is why Skeptiko needs careful moderation!

David
 
Who was it who called Science (the body) and Religion 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria?' Stephen Jay Gould? I think they overlap about 90%.

Nah TES! Its 100%. It was Gould and he was talking bollocks because he knew nothing about religion at all.

The idea that science and religion are separate is nonsensical, but I admit that's not a statement that makes much sense to people steeped in the materialist cant about religion and religion's abject inability to defend itself. You actually do have to spend some time digging into what religion is really about - and that's not easy, because there is an awful lot of hogwash written on the subject.

At the risk of sounding arrogant I want to propose my theory of religion simply and briefly: the human response to the existential awareness of existing in conscious reality (animistic). Our ancestors were animists - they contemplated reality as living - as full of spirits - and they had to find a way of coming to terms with that awareness - how to live, how to behave, how to flourish in a reality as 'Thou', not 'It'.

The 'It' option arose in The Enlightenment (what a paradox). So let's define science as the human response to the intellectual awareness of existing in a materialistic reality (not conscious).

Science and religion are the same psychological mechanism, but activated by two different sets of assumptions. This is an awfully simplistic 'explanation' - but I think it delivers the key elements similarity and distinction.

What we are seeing now, and why Gould is so wrong, is that the intellectual methodology is now being applied to the animistic actuality - and this is altering human awareness in ways we are yet to openly understand - and which seems to have been part of a 'plan'. That is to say that the move to materialism seems to have been a kind of disruptive spiritual palate cleanser between two stages in human development. My intuition on this theme so far outstrips my capacity to articulate it - and I am trying to be brief as well.

For me there is a single human psychospiritual architecture that underpins whatever we do. Saying science and religion do not overlap just completely misses this deep point.
 
Nah TES! Its 100%. It was Gould and he was talking bollocks because he knew nothing about religion at all.

The idea that science and religion are separate is nonsensical, but I admit that's not a statement that makes much sense to people steeped in the materialist cant about religion and religion's abject inability to defend itself. You actually do have to spend some time digging into what religion is really about - and that's not easy, because there is an awful lot of hogwash written on the subject.

At the risk of sounding arrogant I want to propose my theory of religion simply and briefly: the human response to the existential awareness of existing in conscious reality (animistic). Our ancestors were animists - they contemplated reality as living - as full of spirits - and they had to find a way of coming to terms with that awareness - how to live, how to behave, how to flourish in a reality as 'Thou', not 'It'.

The 'It' option arose in The Enlightenment (what a paradox). So let's define science as the human response to the intellectual awareness of existing in a materialistic reality (not conscious).

Science and religion are the same psychological mechanism, but activated by two different sets of assumptions. This is an awfully simplistic 'explanation' - but I think it delivers the key elements similarity and distinction.

What we are seeing now, and why Gould is so wrong, is that the intellectual methodology is now being applied to the animistic actuality - and this is altering human awareness in ways we are yet to openly understand - and which seems to have been part of a 'plan'. That is to say that the move to materialism seems to have been a kind of disruptive spiritual palate cleanser between two stages in human development. My intuition on this theme so far outstrips my capacity to articulate it - and I am trying to be brief as well.

For me there is a single human psychospiritual architecture that underpins whatever we do. Saying science and religion do not overlap just completely misses this deep point.

Very interesting step back. Very refreshing view of our progression - not as mistake, but as a seven (?) coursed meal.
 
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Let me explain. For some insane reason, in our Wikipedia World, if we for instance are engaged in a dispute about how celestial navigation works, a person who actually is a celestial navigator and has employed it to sail around the world is supposed to keep silent about this during the discussion. The fact that they have first hand experience, renders them now inadmissible as a participant, in the eyes of the Wiki-faker. One must either cite an academic reference, or employ rhetoric as their argument artifice. All material must come from official (and of course suitably humble) sources. In other words, highly conflict-of-interest induced, academia. (Hence the business apothegm "Those who cannot do, teach.")

This social principle is exactly the reason why we are huddled into a small forum here today. Fakers, posing in retail store mannequin humility, inside an integral miasma of lack in genuineness. This 'displacement of the genuine/first hand' bears the negative outcome of social pressure to conform, and results in a high degree of ignorance with regard to many critical or foundational subjects such as spirituality and man's origins.

I want to defend Wikipedia. Its very nature means it is vulnerable to liars and politically motivate fruitcakes. It is predicated on a preponderance of good will and intellectual integrity. Sadly that aligns with the liberty of idiot liars to misrepresent truth. But the same is true in many media.

allow me to jump in here an advocate for the conspiratorial perspective. I believe it's unreasonable to expect any kind of neutrality, fairness, or "good will and intellectual integrity" from wikipedia. I have no doubt that there are some well-meaning people associated with the project but it also seems clear that there is an overarching agenda / directive.

this brings us back to episode 409 and Dr. Phillip Goff... if you your livelihood within a system/platform with a narrowly-defined set of beliefs you learn to dance the dance you get out.
 
allow me to jump in here an advocate for the conspiratorial perspective. I believe it's unreasonable to expect any kind of neutrality, fairness, or "good will and intellectual integrity" from wikipedia. I have no doubt that there are some well-meaning people associated with the project but it also seems clear that there is an overarching agenda / directive.

this brings us back to episode 409 and Dr. Phillip Goff... if you your livelihood within a system/platform with a narrowly-defined set of beliefs you learn to dance the dance you get out.

I agree, but tend to avoid starting with the word conspiratorial; recognizing most agency as tribalism. In some of my work, I have had to negotiate between third world tribal leaders in order to gain backing for various projects inside food trade, energy, infrastructure, etc. So workers were not threatened, trucks blocked, etc.

But in this case with Wikipedia we grapple with an illegitimate entity, 'A Tribe Called Truth'. The problem with A Tribe Called Truth is that, they must always get their way - or quod erat demonstrandum, a lesser form of humanity inhabits you personally, and must be socially called out.

In a Tribe Called Truth, the gain in 'information correction' is never worth the net loss in epistemology and humanity. The deal with the devil is never manifest. Obscured behind 'facts' which are falsely posed to imply credibility therefore, to the fact-monger. If I spout off 100 correct facts and 1 opinion, my constitution is revealed only in that 1 opinion - and I can derive no personal credit whatsoever for the '100 facts'.

The qualification of the leader of a Tribe Called Truth, is that he or she recognize this and take corrective action. Wikipedia has not. If they do not, then a fortiori they are indeed, a conspiracy. So Alex is actually correct. The Tribe Called Truth never realizing that club quality does not work - it eventually becomes even worse than that evil which it was commissioned to neutralize to begin with.


Wikipedia needs to reign in Guerilla Skepticism - or continue to lose credibility.
 
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I think it is important to separate practical considerations about health from theoretical speculation. At a practical level, I'd say whatever works.

David

In general I am in 100% agreement with this philosophy. The point I was trying to make is that sometimes conventional wisdom (that mediation can help with depression) while somewhat true and supportable by scientific studies, may in reality not be much help, and other approaches might be better.

For example if someone is depressed because they have a nutritional deficiency, meditation might help a bit, but it would probably be better to change their diet if possible rather than to rely on meditation to compensate.

"Whatever works" should not be used to bolster a poor solution.
 
I have no doubt that there are some well-meaning people associated with the project but it also seems clear that there is an overarching agenda / directive.

But anyone can contribute to Wikipedia and less insane contributors are fine. But, as Sheldrake found, its the mad bastards, who alter what's in there for their own childish ends that spoil it - and the liars. If you use Wikipedia to look up contested themes you may be wasting your time - but at least its dynamic - unlike the more stable authorities that just toe the party line and deliver materialistic dogma.

If there is an overarching agenda/directive it is coming from the meddlers.
 
Wikipedia needs to reign in Guerilla Skepticism - or continue to lose credibility.

The problem is that the very nature of Wikipedia exposes it to this risk. I think the solution is to use it in conjunction with other sources and also recognise the risk areas and avoid them. Th credibility concern seems to arise when people don't fully appreciate what is going on. And on the other hand Britannica and other sources lock 'wrong' information down and do not expose it to communal challenge.

For me Wikipedia rejects the true state of 'knowledge' - often contested, frequently riven by petty immature squabbles and efforts at distortion and downright fabrication by politically energised agents. We can live in the safe delusion of a Britannica's glossy deliver of 'approved' knowledge if we want.

But, TES, as fundamentally skeptical souls, surely we can live with uncertainty?
 
But, TES, as fundamentally skeptical souls, surely we can live with uncertainty?

Uncertainty is a state founded upon inaccessible knowledge or model structure. Our challenge with Wikipedia is not uncertainty. We live under cultivated ignorance or Nelsonian inference, and Wikipedia is run by the very Tribe Called Truth, who seek that ignorance. That should not be acceptable to a real skeptic - :)

Skepticism is unrelenting, disciplined, incremental and critical path, foolishness.
It is the eye of neutrality, inside the mercenary tempest of curious passion.


I did not know. I went and looked. Everything else was vanity.

*Note, that if I found these ideas elsewhere, I would quote them. Unfortunately, I have to be the one to create them.

Oh, and as if to prove my point - one will notice that Wikipedia defines Nelsonian knowledge (agency) as 'willful blindness' (apathy). Those are not the same thing. To the point of crafting the language, Wikipedia employs Nelsonian knowledge, even in the defining of the term Nelsonian knowledge itself.
 
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I agree, but tend to avoid starting with the word conspiratorial; recognizing most agency as tribalism. In some of my work, I have had to negotiate between third world tribal leaders in order to gain backing for various projects inside food trade, energy, infrastructure, etc. So workers were not threatened, trucks blocked, etc.

But in this case with Wikipedia we grapple with an illegitimate entity, 'A Tribe Called Truth'. The problem with A Tribe Called Truth is that, they must always get their way - or quod erat demonstrandum, a lesser form of humanity inhabits you personally, and must be socially called out.

In a Tribe Called Truth, the gain in 'information correction' is never worth the net loss in epistemology and humanity. The deal with the devil is never manifest. Obscured behind 'facts' which are falsely posed to imply credibility therefore, to the fact-monger. If I spout off 100 correct facts and 1 opinion, my constitution is revealed only in that 1 opinion - and I can derive no personal credit whatsoever for the '100 facts'.

The qualification of the leader of a Tribe Called Truth, is that he or she recognize this and take corrective action. Wikipedia has not. If they do not, then a fortiori they are indeed, a conspiracy. So Alex is actually correct. The Tribe Called Truth never realizing that club quality does not work - it eventually becomes even worse than that evil which it was commissioned to neutralize to begin with.


Wikipedia needs to reign in Guerilla Skepticism - or continue to lose credibility.
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thx for the link to yr awesome post/article. who does yr artwork?
===
5th Hand – A prejudicial spin, straw man, disinformation, or exaggeration which is extracted from 4th Hand information

6th Hand – A transformed, misleading, witness disparaging and cherry picked set of 1st – 5th Hand information

7th Hand – Codification, club review or false authority derived from 5th and 6th Hand information
===
I think this is an awesome framework with which to look at wikipedia.
 
7th Hand – Codification, club review or false authority derived from 5th and 6th Hand information
===
I think this is an awesome framework with which to look at wikipedia.

Exactly.

Wikipedia is 7th Hand Information, which hides this flaw by shrouding itself with facts. This does not mean that its information is wrong, rather that it is vulnerable to being propaganda if not challenged by another authority.

Facts are the disguise-campaign (either administering or refuting them) one wears to conceal incompetence on a critical path argument.
 
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Exactly.

Wikipedia is 7th Hand Information, which hides this flaw by shrouding itself with facts.

Facts are the disguise-campaign (either administering or refuting them) one wears to conceal incompetence on a critical path argument.
agreed... and there's a frankenstein effect where the system takes on a life of its own. I've seen a couple of exposes on wikipedia shenanigans... surprisingly small number of people who lead these disinformation campaigns.

social conformity is a powerful thing, eh? especially when it taps into pre-existing beliefs.
(funny VO... "maybe this isn't a bad thing" really???)
 
Wikipedia is run by the very Tribe Called Truth

I get your point, but I think all knowledge is uncertain and while I know Wikipedia seeks' 'truth' it as a vain an attempt as any ambition for encyclopaedic knowledge, I find it useful.

Wikipedia is just that more chaotic in its representations of truth - and I am cool with that. I don't presume that it should be a definitive source - just a useful one. All 'knowledge' is, when all is said and done, just an opinion that either does or does not conform certain standards and expectations. I just don't see Wikipedia as inherently unreliable - and I am puzzled by those who see it is. If I need ideas to help me think about a theme I have found the opinions in Wikipedia more stimulating than many other sources.

It is dangerous to rely upon a single source of opinions as knowledge, if what you want is to be less encumbered by BS. I like the uncertainty of not knowing whether what I have just read is 'true' - in fact I care more that an opinion is interesting and provocative.
 
I've seen a couple of exposes on wikipedia shenanigans... surprisingly small number of people who lead these disinformation campaigns.

Why are you blaming Wikipedia for the misconduct of people who are determined to misinform and so abuse the very principle under which Wikipedia was established and operates? That's like blaming democracy for the lies politicians tell.

On some levels Wikipedia is an evolving body of information that is useful to grown ups. On another it is a shit fight between immature idiots. Like democracy it can and will be abused. I don't contribute to Wikipedia because I have other things to do, and, besides, I am not rigorous enough. But I am grateful for the grown up scholars who do contribute and provide the fruits of their research in well mannered and properly tempered ways.

I have found stuff on Wikipedia where no other source have delivered and even admittedly imperfect content was useful. I like its open character that allows anybody to contribute. I know that means this also allows idiots into distort and rewrite material placed in good faith - and to make political and dogmatic asserts as thought they are bona fide fruits of scholarship. But the benefits outweigh the detriments.
 
Why are you blaming Wikipedia for the misconduct of people who are determined to misinform and so abuse the very principle under which Wikipedia was established and operates? That's like blaming democracy for the lies politicians tell.
I don't understand who else would we "blame." it's kind of like saying don't blame the catholic church.
 
I get your point, but I think all knowledge is uncertain and while I know Wikipedia seeks' 'truth' it as a vain an attempt as any ambition for encyclopaedic knowledge, I find it useful.

Wikipedia is just that more chaotic in its representations of truth - and I am cool with that. I don't presume that it should be a definitive source - just a useful one. All 'knowledge' is, when all is said and done, just an opinion that either does or does not conform certain standards and expectations. I just don't see Wikipedia as inherently unreliable - and I am puzzled by those who see it is.

We are talking overlapping domains, so I both mostly agree with you Michael, but also disagree in special circumstances. Two Points, to wit:

You have not committed :), rather are following a path of logic, which is later exploited by ignorance-agency, rendering our knowledge base vulnerable to acatalepsia fallacy. I was able to exploit this inside the lab I ran to overturn several 'probable' dogma inside our industry years ago. Very fun. :)

acatalepsia fallacy – a flaw in critical path logic wherein one appeals to the Pyrrhonistic Skepticism principle that no knowledge can ever be entirely certain – and twists it into the implication that therefore, knowledge is ascertained by the mere establishment of some form of ‘probability’. Moreover, that therefore, when a probability is established, no matter how plausible, slight or scant in representation of the domain of information it might constitute, it is therefore now accepted truth. Because all knowledge is only ‘probable’ knowledge, all one has to do is spin an apparent probability, and one has ascertained accepted knowledge. Very similar in logic to the Occam’s Razor aphorism citing that the ‘simplest explanation’ is the correct explanation.​

This is how they get away with misrepresenting subjects and persons, because they have a 'probability' that their propaganda is right, given the controlled recitation literature put out by agency-infused groups. All they need is a dash of disinformation, and a little shove of 'critical thinking' ...and voilà one has the recipe for wrong.

I also disagree from a second perspective. Wikipedia bears two burdens under its current agency-Tribe called Truth manifestation, if left unchecked.

1. The first is the responsibility of fact (in modus ponens and modus praesens), of course - as we all know. This is the gentle giant perception we all carry of Wikipedia, and indeed this is also a reality, which you cite. I use Wikipedia often in this regard.​
2. The second however is a principle I call Corber's Burden, and it proceeds like this. Wikipedia, through Nelsonian knowledge and its fealty to Guerrilla Skepticism, also takes on the burden of declaring the domain of what is relevantly false. When one takes upon themselves the burden of declaring all which is relevant and in the domain of false (modus tollens and modus absens), one shifts to a different standard of epistemic authority and inference. (Please note that not every Wikipedia article does this... I can cite many exceptions...)​

Corber’s Burden - the mantle of ethics undertaken when one claims the role of representing conclusive scientific truth, ascertained by means other than science, such as ‘rational thinking,’ ‘critical thinking,’ ‘common sense,’ or skeptical doubt. An authoritative claim or implication as to possessing knowledge of a complete set of that which is incorrect. The nature of such a claim to authority on one’s part demands that the skeptic who assumes such a role be 100% correct.​
a. When one tenders an authoritative claim as to what is relevantly incorrect – one must be perfectly correct.​
b. When a person or organization claims to be an authority on all that is relevant bunk, their credibility decays in inverse exponential proportion to the number of subjects in which such authority is claimed.​
c. A sufficiently large or comprehensive set of claims to conclusive evidence of pervasive bunk, is indistinguishable from an appeal to authority.​
 
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