Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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maestro
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by maestro »

Dave Toast wrote: As I said, the practice of mindfulness is not a scientifically empirical methodology. You are confusing the philosophical discipline of empiricism with the scientifically empirical. Any good scientist would never make that mistake. There is a big difference. What you've basically said is that the buddah observed and theorized about said observations. That is only the beginning of the scientific method. This is to say nothing of the the potential for objectivity (an essential component of the truly scientific method) when considered from a necessarily subjective viewpoint.
In a sense mindfulness is objective since if you observe your mind (i.e. repeat the experiment) you will reproduce (or find evidence contradictory to) Buddha's observations. Now the observations are not quantifiable and the observational process is not visible to an outside observer. Thus it is not the scientific method per se, but it is the best that can be done under the circumstances.
Dave Toast
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by Dave Toast »

Philosophaster wrote:
maestro wrote:What is so bad about an empirical methodology that you have such an extreme prejudice against it.
Science and empirical methods demand actual results, and that makes people here uncomfortable. They would rather spin out webs of words pregnant with "deep" significance and blather about their supposed superiority to women, Jews, and the "unconscious" masses.

After all, any old joker can do those things, and none of them involves any real possibility of failure.
You won't find me doing any of those things, not that you haven't judged me already. And being as the quote you've answered here was originally addressed to me and considering the fact that I get paid to be a scientist, integrity would demand that you retract your insinuations, now I've corrected your prejudice.

Do you want me to judge you to be in the same bracket as some of the loons on TPG, just as you judge everyone here to be in the same bracket as some of the loons here?
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maestro
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by maestro »

Dave Toast wrote: It's all surface. Just because it's got the words 'life' and 'problems' in it, you transpose this as being somehow about what anyone might think of as the mundane problems of life. What he is refering to is not how to pay the bills but simply eliminating suffering - becoming enlightened.
And the speediest way to eliminate suffering is?

A)Establishing absolutely certain tautological truths.
B)Doing the dirty and uncertain work of actually cleaning the mind?
Dave Toast
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by Dave Toast »

Are you going to comprehensively address all the points put to you or can we just leave this here?
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maestro
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by maestro »

Dave Toast wrote: It's all surface. Just because it's got the words 'life' and 'problems' in it, you transpose this as being somehow about what anyone might think of as the mundane problems of life. What he is refering to is not how to pay the bills but simply eliminating suffering - becoming enlightened.
Why did you assume I meant paying the bills by this.
Dave Toast wrote:I think that the buddah did not reply in this manner because the point he was making was about distractions and earnestness, as opposed to being about the definition of god or whether a god exists. Pretty simple really.
And I think he did not reply in this manner because, it would not have been useful for the person in question.
Dave Toast wrote: And now you're saying that he was a metaphysician, an ontologist, whereas your original claim was that buddah was somehow counselling against what he actually did - metaphysics - and what you refered to as "building a ironclad, absolute logical philosophy as people here seem to be so hung up about", which again is actually exactly what the buddah was doing when he came to his metaphysical conclusions.

When did I say he was a metaphysician an ontologist?
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maestro
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Re: Parable of the poison arrow and science.

Post by maestro »

Exactly. So why would he then be suggesting that the enlightened person would "then inquire about god, soul and the universe"? This is a clear contradiction.
Well of course what I meant was that if the person after eliminating his suffering wishes to pursue these issues and other airy matters that is upto him. And gave a sly hint that he may not enquire after all, for when one is content one does not chase phantoms, but some may depending on their predisposition.
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