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

But if you substitute the word 'science' for each use of the words 'spiritual/religious' your logic still applies.

I agree with you here.

I have been experimenting with this model where beliefs are related to experiences, emotions, thoughts/cognition, and society/culture/history.

I tend to think that some folks slide around from spiritual/religious to atheistic (or from atheistic to spiritual/religious) based on that range of experiences.

So I think you are saying that we all want a belief system to cling to. That to me is illogical, and it often takes the passage of time to discover this. Everything is a belief system and logic and proof are no more near it than spirituality/religion.
I mentioned "logic and proof" because the post I was replying to mentioned it. I was trying to say that I think "logic and proof" aren't 100% effective in persuading people to change their minds on someting when the reasons people are clinging to a different position are more complex.

We're never going to understand this ineffable thing unless we stop trying to find, define or prove it, and begin to use our intuition as a means of reading its truths.

I like your idea that maybe life, the universe, and everything are "ineffable". I tend to think that there's no one system or set of ideas that will ever define or prove it. I tend to think that all of the different "frames of mind" we find ourselves in are important to the question. It seems like any particular "frame of mind" I'm in can only capture a narrow chunk of the whole.

Emotional manifestations show where our beliefs, needs and desires lie. They should be a gateway to understanding, not a reason for choosing/reverting to another belief system.
The attention to conflicting external opposites keeps us distracted from what is found within.
Or perhaps people enjoy 'being sheep'
I'm not sure if I get what you mean?
 
Wittgenstein said "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language." It is not for the equivocally-habituated, agency-minded nor casual thinker.

Hi TES. Love it! What superb insight! What a pity Wittgenstein isn't appreciated by a lot of modern so-called philosophers, who think that being in possession of a degree qualification in philosophy is a sufficient basis for claiming to be a philosopher. So much modern 'philosophy' is precisely the bewitchment of intelligence by means of language.

But I am comparatively a crude an uneducated thinker - prone to literalism. I see philosophy in that literal light - a love of wisdom. We cannot seek wisdom by bewitchment. We will get information, and maybe even knowledge now and then, but the enchantment of words cannot bring more than that.

I am a huge fan of The Book of Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), which is about the getting of Wisdom. Words are only part of the getting of wisdom, and they can bewitch us and take use down a different path.

We do live in the Information Age, not the Wisdom Age, so what passes for philosophy is way more like to be a battle lost.
 
We're never going to understand this ineffable thing unless we stop trying to find, define or prove it, and begin to use our intuition as a means of reading its truths.

Do we study and analyse love or surrender to it? Of those we love we do not know them in a rational way. Of the possible rational knowledge we may have of our beloved what we possess is vanishingly small, and only sufficient to ensure we can identify them, so that the heart centred desire can burst forth.

Doubt me? Think of then data about your beloved's body obtained by medical tests, scans, an autopsy and so on - and your knowledge of their body amounts to what? Just enough to serve your purpose. On a psychological level the same applies. Indeed, unless you are a manic stalker, this applied on every level. You will possess the merest fraction of objective knowledge about the person and yet you will claim to 'know' him/her. Of course you don't. But you will have a deep sense of connection with something you take to be their fundamental nature - unique to you and them. And on that basis you will assert you 'know' them.

What does the word 'know' mean? How do we know? How do we know that what we think we know is really knowing?

Way back, spiritual philosophers came to understand that God was unknowable. The best they could do was engage in an intentional relationship that would evolve over time. They would have some awareness of that relationship that could be called knowledge - but how would that be expressed? In poetry? In art? In dance? In the silence of meditation? In theology? In philosophy? In all of those?
 
I mentioned "logic and proof" because the post I was replying to mentioned it.
I know.
I tend to think that there's no one system or set of ideas that will ever define or prove it. I tend to think that all of the different "frames of mind" we find ourselves in are important to the question. It seems like any particular "frame of mind" I'm in can only capture a narrow chunk of the whole.
Definitely. I used "ineffable" as the NDErs do, they being the nearest we have to 'researchers in the field'! It reminds me of Lao Tsu's 'the Dao that cannot be named'. Yes, a whole new method of perception seems necessary.
I'm not sure if I get what you mean?
I was wondering how to teach/learn how to recognise Intuition. And because you described how people "feel duped, embarrassed, humiliated" and leads to "hardening their hearts". I think we run away from our emotions, when we should be using them to understand what our intuition is telling us we need. Intuition also requires scrupulous honesty with ourselves and others and alert attention to our inner voice of conscience. And not getting distracted by pointless arguments with the spiritually undeveloped!
 
I like your idea that maybe life, the universe, and everything are "ineffable". I tend to think that there's no one system or set of ideas that will ever define or prove it. I tend to think that all of the different "frames of mind" we find ourselves in are important to the question. It seems like any particular "frame of mind" I'm in can only capture a narrow chunk of the whole.

If we define the universe as all that can be, was and is we cannot define or prove anything in any absolute way. The best we can hope for is to craft functional knowledge that serves a positive purpose.

Any frame of mind you are in captures only your infinitesimally small expression of thought and understsnding- but that's okay.

We humans do a really strange thing these days - we define our own ignorance. I do not want to seem disrespectful Dan, but when you write " capture a narrow chunk of the whole" you are defining your ignorance in a generous manner. What you can in fact capture is closer to an infinitesimally small portion. I do not think we can come up with language to do that dimension any justice. But certainly not 'narrow chunk'.

Years ago I went through an existential crisis over this. We live in a culture that has orgiastic carry ons over knowledge and information. We live in an information age and in a knowledge economy - yeah, but at tiny micro scale. Some fondly think we humans are 'advanced' relative to ET. On what basis other than hubris? They expect that we should be treated as the 'intelligent' species in control of things here on Planet Earth. Really? Some of the language is hilarious - we and "other advance species". We are 'advanced' in our imaginations only.

I tend to think that there's no one system or set of ideas that will ever define or prove it. You are quite right. Defining and proving are tiny processes. When was the last time you defined or proved anything important to you? Outside the materialistic transactional stuff that just makes decent sense on the physical plane we don't define or prove. We can't. We guess.

Materialists guess they are right and then talk a load of complete rationalistic bullshit to defend their guess. So do atheists. You can't prove God or spirit does not exist. All you can 'prove' is that God or spirit as defined do not exist in your reality, as defined. But that's as mature a POV as an adolescent insisting that their parents do not love them because they will not (insert whatever you want).

The reality in which we live does not give a fig whether we believe in it or not. This should be the psychological maturity hint we take from materialists and atheists - all we have is now. But this is what Zen teaches also. The difference is that one teaches an implicit moral connection with the deeper reality, and the other does not.

The materialist model says the capacity to know the 'now' will cease when the flesh ceases to be functional as a generator of consciousness. The alternative model is that the capacity to know the 'now' endures. If there is an end date we can develop the illusion that knowledge is also finite - otherwise ending without the prospect of knowing seems unkind. But if there is no date knowledge need only be situational and contingent.
 
Do we study and analyse love or surrender to it?
Love is a power greater than ourselves, so surrender looks inevitable, that's why it feels so good!
and your knowledge of their body amounts to what? Just enough to serve your purpose. On a psychological level the same applies.
This is analysing the ineffable! I suppose you can only know about your love for them, and that is self-oriented, but I'm not in love, the couples would know better about longterm love.
What does the word 'know' mean? How do we know? How do we know that what we think we know is really knowing?
Knowing is a quality, a sense, and possibly bypasses thinking.
 
I was wondering how to teach/learn how to recognise Intuition. And because you described how people "feel duped, embarrassed, humiliated" and leads to "hardening their hearts". I think we run away from our emotions, when we should be using them to understand what our intuition is telling us we need. Intuition also requires scrupulous honesty with ourselves and others and alert attention to our inner voice of conscience. And not getting distracted by pointless arguments with the spiritually undeveloped!

Alice, so spot on here. Emotions have a bad wrap because we associate them with being out of control compared to reason. But then we have the mad professor and the Bond villains - intellect and reason with no emotion. We have the hysteric on one polar extreme and the psychopath on the other. In between we have what we now appreciate as Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

I am going to disagree bit here. Intuition requires what we call the rational mind to shut up and stop thinking it has filtration rights on all incoming. That's step one. That's a hard reflex to disabuse ourselves of. We are habituated to the proposition that what we call reason is higher than any incoming sense that does not conform to what we think is how thing should be.

What you are talking about is a higher sense of intuition that touches on soul awareness, what used to be called reason before intellect and reason became synonymous when the soul was jettisoned as a valid idea.

And not getting distracted by pointless arguments with the spiritually undeveloped! I love this. This isn't a contest. I do not expect you to believe what I believe because you have not had my experience. I can tell you my story, and I do not care if you believe. I have no investment. You are free to respond as you will - my telling my story binds you to nothing.
 
Emotions have a bad wrap because we associate them with being out of control compared to reason.
It is unbalanced not to allow emotions some say. And repression leads to sudden, extreme expression, understandably.
Intuition requires what we call the rational mind to shut up and stop thinking
Agreed
What you are talking about is a higher sense of intuition that touches on soul awareness
Am I? Cool
This isn't a contest. I do not expect you to believe what I believe because you have not had my experience.
This is more generous than I am. I've come to the recent conclusion, not that there are those more or less intelligent or capable of spiritual understanding and wisdom, just that they're not there yet. A tad superior I know, but I'm over waiting for some people to catch up!
 
Sciebam
/philosophy : science : method : sciebam/ : (Latin: I knew) An alternative form of knowledge development, which mandates that science begins with the orphan/non-informed step of ‘ask a question’ or ‘state a hypothesis’.​
nice... But I have to wonder if this is still relevant in the "shut up and calculate world" we live in. engineering reigns supreme. we sidestepped all the tough science questions when we realized we didn't have the tools to answer them... e.g. measurement/observer problem... and the limits Bayesian statistics.
 
Why Inference and The Elements of Hypothesis are of Extraordinary Importance

And by the way, today's $2 billion award against Bayer/Monsanto is a prime example of a corporation who exploited scientists who are poorly trained in philosophy, domain, soundness, logical calculus, types and modes of inference - who cost Americans their health and many people their lives...

The price of pretend science... The price of our 'skeptics' chasing UFO's, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster

...when, if they were so smart - they should have been challenging the 'science' which Monsanto was publishing. Even as friends saying "Monsanto, we love you as a company, but linear induction conducted by former employees in retirement, publishing one-and-done studies, is NOT sound basis for a dismissal of the precautionary principle; especially when it regards something everyone consumes four times per day for their LIFE. That requires solid plenary deductive work and NOT political one-liners."

I, along with others, have warned about this coming for over a decade now. We tried to head this off and offer a new view/ethic of this market to Monsanto years ago. They chuckled in their arrogance. Science to them was about power, profit, hiring nasty fake skeptics, political allies and enemies - and not on the prosecution of the subject at hand.

Big Mistake - not something I am celebrating either.

More bastions of pretend science are going to fall in the coming years. And this will include Oppressive Nihilistic Materialism as well.

 
I was wondering how to teach/learn how to recognise Intuition. And because you described how people "feel duped, embarrassed, humiliated" and leads to "hardening their hearts". I think we run away from our emotions, when we should be using them to understand what our intuition is telling us we need. Intuition also requires scrupulous honesty with ourselves and others and alert attention to our inner voice of conscience. And not getting distracted by pointless arguments with the spiritually undeveloped!
Alice, so spot on here. Emotions have a bad wrap because we associate them with being out of control compared to reason. But then we have the mad professor and the Bond villains - intellect and reason with no emotion. We have the hysteric on one polar extreme and the psychopath on the other. In between we have what we now appreciate as Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

I am going to disagree bit here. Intuition requires what we call the rational mind to shut up and stop thinking it has filtration rights on all incoming. That's step one. That's a hard reflex to disabuse ourselves of. We are habituated to the proposition that what we call reason is higher than any incoming sense that does not conform to what we think is how thing should be.

What you are talking about is a higher sense of intuition that touches on soul awareness, what used to be called reason before intellect and reason became synonymous when the soul was jettisoned as a valid idea.

And not getting distracted by pointless arguments with the spiritually undeveloped! I love this. This isn't a contest. I do not expect you to believe what I believe because you have not had my experience. I can tell you my story, and I do not care if you believe. I have no investment. You are free to respond as you will - my telling my story binds you to nothing.

awesome dialogue. I have been doing a deep re-dive into one of my favorite, great yoga teachers mickey singer. he's saying a lot of the same things here regarding balancing the rational and the emotional self.
The Untethered Soul & The Surrender Experiment - Official Site
 
nice... But I have to wonder if this is still relevant in the "shut up and calculate world" we live in. engineering reigns supreme. we sidestepped all the tough science questions when we realized we didn't have the tools to answer them... e.g. measurement/observer problem... and the limits Bayesian statistics.

We did sidestep the tough questions when we could not solve them with a slide rule or integral calculus.

In engineering there is an old dog saying: "Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil and cut it with an axe". People who major in precise measures, never seem to realize that most all sound decisions are still made by gut feeling. Sometimes, an obsession with the precise is a way to hide from having to deal with the difficult or overwhelming in the first place.

With language however, this is not the case. Eliciting the irony in that the precision of engineers does not serve to translate well into precision with linguistic expression.
 
We did sidestep the tough questions when we could not solve them with a slide rule or integral calculus.

In engineering there is an old dog saying: "Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil and cut it with an axe". People who major in precise measures, never seem to realize that most all sound decisions are still made by gut feeling. Sometimes, an obsession with the precise is a way to hide from having to deal with the difficult or overwhelming in the first place.

With language however, this is not the case. Eliciting the irony in that the precision of engineers does not serve to translate well into precision with linguistic expression.
I think there's a lot to be said for the intoxicating feeling of high-powered engineering. mastery of the forces of nature is heady stuff. sounds like you've had a taste of this in observed it as well. any thoughts?
 
I think there's a lot to be said for the intoxicating feeling of high-powered engineering. mastery of the forces of nature is heady stuff. sounds like you've had a taste of this in observed it as well. any thoughts?

Engineering a project of any large magnitude, is sheer terror most of the time. Despite adherence to ASME standards and performance/design/safety protocols and benchmarks, one still has in the back of their mind during a design/build/startup, "Will this thing ultimately fail?' 'Will I be barred for life from doing this work again?' 'Will I lose my home and my family's well being?' Especially if designing something which has never been done before. Unfortunately I am the guy who gets called for that type of work.

So, you ignore the terror and just plod onward, examining every detail or person to find that hint of the land mine which will serve to blow up on you on the big day of startup.

In the end, you keep poker faced as the 'thing', whatever it is (energy system, large building or system, power grid, new market, food distribution system, healthcare approach, medicine/mercy operation, brand strategy, merger, etc.) comes to be a success... and people remark how 'You knew this would work all along' and 'The most brilliant evolution in ________________ in decades.'

Meanwhile you sneak back to the hotel and clean the 'mess out yer' drawers' and cry over missing your kids for so long.

When I fly back at the conclusion of a very large effort, I usually go into a deep depression - which thankfully takes about 2 or 3 days to work through. So, I will sit in the back of the plane and cover myself with a blanket and just hide and sleep - until it passes. I am not that guy sitting in Business Class sucking back cocktails and reading motivational books.

So to me, the one's who make all the profit from such activity - they bear no idea what actually occurred, and they carry the heady perception of mastery of forces. :)
 
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Engineering a project of any large magnitude, is sheer terror most of the time. Despite adherence to ASME standards and performance/design/safety protocols and benchmarks, one still has in the back of their mind during a design/build/startup, "Will this thing ultimately fail?' 'Will I be barred for life from doing this work again?' 'Will I lose my home and my family's well being?' Especially if designing something which has never been done before. Unfortunately I am the guy who gets called for that type of work.

So, you ignore the terror and just plod onward, examining every detail or person to find that hint of the land mine which will serve to blow up on you on the big day of startup.

In the end, you keep poker faced as the 'thing', whatever it is (energy system, large building or system, power grid, new market, food distribution system, healthcare approach, medicine/mercy operation, brand strategy, merger, etc.) comes to be a success... and people remark how 'You knew this would work all along' and 'The most brilliant evolution in ________________ in decades.'

Meanwhile you sneak back to the hotel and clean the 'mess out yer' drawers' and cry over missing your kids for so long.

When I fly back at the conclusion of a very large effort, I usually go into a deep depression - which thankfully takes about 2 or 3 days to work through. So, I will sit in the back of the plane and cover myself with a blanket and just hide and sleep - until it passes. I am not that guy sitting in Business Class sucking back cocktails and reading motivational books.

So to me, the one's who make all the profit from such activity - they bear no idea what actually occurred, and they carry the heady perception of mastery of forces. :)
totally get this... and totally respect the perspective. how could it be otherwise? how does Oppenheimer not watch in horror as the bomb explodes? Of course, some don't... some become absorbed in the "master of the universe" complex (in fact, I suspect that everyone who has ever made any "done anything" has... part of the process).

But I'm becoming interested in exploring another reality (i.e. not a philosophy, but a reality):

“...take a look at reality. You’re floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever... You gain nothing by being bothered by life’s events (small examples of weather and traffic scale up to everything every in yr past) . It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer.”
"The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality. "
― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
 
“...take a look at reality. You’re floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever... You gain nothing by being bothered by life’s events (small examples of weather and traffic scale up to everything every in yr past) . It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer.”
"The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality. "
― Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

I am of the philosophical mindset more along the quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld, 'Humility is the worst form of conceit.' A person with Asperger's or ASD is a person who is highly self focused and often socially inept. Pisses off colleagues at times. They often do not bear a skill nor ability to lie. This does not serve to make them therefore 'narcissist'. In my experience, the true narcissist - the one who will surreptitiously disrupt a project and harm everyone else, for their own personal gain - is one who will keep silent most of the time - and never bring attention to 'self' at all. They practice the cleverest form of Machiavellian social perception manipulation: the appearance of selflessness.

There was a reason why NASA picked Buzz Aldrin as their number two guy (and for a while their number one) on the Apollo 11 mission - yes he was noisy, apparently self focused and opinionated. But NASA also knew that with Buzz, what they saw was what they got - he was transparent. They knew how he would react, and could employ him reliably, and accordingly. They knew he had the confidence to take the action needed or even give his life for the other two guys. They could trust him.

Of course, I cannot vouch for the message inside Singer's book, but I take conditional umbrage with this quote/excerpt: “When a problem is disturbing you, don't ask, "What should I do about it?" Ask, "What part of me is being disturbed by this?” In the same way, 'letting go of the problems one has with reality' as it pertains to vanity or luxury, yes absolutely. ;;/? As it pertains to suffering, no.

To be disconnected from reality such that one can never champion the suffering of one's fellow man - to divorce one's self from the responsibility to tilt your lance at dragons of corruption, calamity and deception - that is the highest form of self-centeredness. One can put on a monk's robe, climb a mountain and whisper only one brilliant pithy apothegm per year - and bear a very high likelihood that one is still uber-self-focused. This is the riddle of ego - it is a dish best served concealed.
 
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As it pertains to suffering, no.
love all of this... and am challenged by all of it as well. too deep/personal/soul-journey-ish to hash out here. I'm sure I'm not even close to being "right" but this is what resonates with me.

Dr. Mariana Caplan - Does Yoga Work? |382| - Skeptiko - Science at ...

Alex Tsakiris: Another great quote I love from Rick’s show. An episode that really slipped under the radar for a lot of people, but for me, there’s a profoundness, a profundity to what this truck driver who never meditated, never practiced any nondual practice, but just thought about things deeply and came to the conclusion that it’s not going to work out. That’s his profound contribution and I think it’s a deep one. “It’s not going to work out.” So, all my plans, for what I want for my kids. They’re not going to work out. All my plans on my relationship with my wife and where that should go, where my business should go, for what I should do with my health, none of it is going to work out. It’s certainly not going to work out exactly the way that I like, and if I really get into it deeply, I’m going to realize it’s really not going to work out at all, and the reason it’s not going to work out, is because of what Amma (who works constantly/tirelessly to end suffering) said, “World, what world?”

I mean the science, if we go back to following the data, the best model we probably have for what is going on is some form of idealism, some form of consciousness being fundamental, of us creating this reality, so of course it’s not going to work out.
 
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