GENIUS FORUMS

John wrote:

Quote:Quote:<hr> Your concept of the grass is not the grass, it is far removed from the grass. <hr> Indeed, it is in his head.

However, your concept of Kevin's concept of grass is far removed from Kevin's concept of grass.

In fact, all of your concepts of Kevin's views are far removed from the reality of his views.

Worse still, your concepts about the nature of concepts themselves are far removed from the reality of concepts. Anything you say about them is bound to be completely wrong - and usually is.

Moreover, none of your concepts of Zen have any connection to Zen at all. You are just a poor sod whose every single thought is completely divorced from reality and utterly without meaning. There is no point in listening to you at all .....

Can there be a bigger idiot than the modern Zen follower, I wonder . . . . ?

Quote:Quote:<hr>What's all this nonsense? Why aren't you answering my question?<hr>
It seems to me neither side is answering the questions. I know I would appreciate some basics here. I did say, Naturyl, that I could use some help. Question for you is, what do you mean it has been observed that the arising particles cannot have a cause?

And for the home team: What is this notion of understanding causality in a spiritual way? What kind of division is this, and why not explain it instead of stating it smugly and walking off?

This is not a good sign for the wisdom of QRS when a woman is in agreement with them. It's like choosing teams in grade school, and they got the fat nerd on their team. I do express my regrets about this unintended abuse. How can you talk science with a woman who has a hard time keeping straight the difference between indeterminism and uncertainty, while remembering the baby strangling comment, and the further comments of Faizi and Thomas regarding it?

What is this infamous baby-strangling remark that everyone keeps refering to? I must have been away at the time.


Quote:Quote:<hr> What is this notion of understanding causality in a spiritual way? What kind of division is this, and why not explain it instead of stating it smugly and walking off? <hr> I went into this in great detail in my book. One only begins to spiritually understand causality when one sees that nothing inherently exists, including one's own self.

The 'ultimate men' want to be the 'ultimate man' for as much as they want to call themsleves themselves! An end would be all! And what end isn't?! But they will not know a beginning also! It is illogical and is conceived in dreams only. But a vision, An infamous 'first cause', A self from ones end, and not behind, through a dreaming that makes a miss of sleep all up! The ultimate men do not want anything of the superhuman! And not from modesty! Love is quite apart from them ultimately! It is funny and sad, They are of the present entirely for what my thought is to the future!

Explain to me why we should bother even attempting to interpret this muck. It isn't worth our time. Poetry leads to different interpretations. Understanding of deep philosophical issues requires clarity.

Quote:Quote:<hr>Explain to me why we should bother even attempting to interpret this muck. It isn't worth our time. Poetry leads to different interpretations. Understanding of deep philosophical issues requires clarity.<hr>


Poetry leads to different interpretations, but so does the deepest philosophy. There is no ultimate clarity of expression.

I may as well speak clearly. Philosophical issues are beneath me. It doesn't matter if you have time for me or not. Edited by: suergaz at: 1/27/04 10:53 am

David:--Quote:Quote:<hr>One only begins to spiritually understand causality when one sees that nothing inherently exists, including one's own self.<hr>

You and a few others do not seem to know the meaning of the word 'inherent'. A thing of course exists in itself, ie. inherently, but not of itself, ie. by itself alone.

Fearing Mystery, they fear Life. All of the ten thousand religions are based on this. This cult of causality is no different. In flight from the reality of our ignorance, they fail to realize that the only thing worse than knowing that you don't know is believing that you do.

Yes, but how did you come to number the religions as 10,000?

<span style="color:white;">Anna: And for the home team: What is this notion of understanding causality in a spiritual way?</span>

That is a good question to ask. Since I feel that this thread has detriorated quite a bit, perhaps we could start a new thread called "Spiritual Causality" or something like that.

<span style="color:white;">Anna: How can you talk science with a woman who has a hard time keeping straight the difference between indeterminism and uncertainty...</span>

It is simple. Uncertainty is the consequence of non-determinism. One question one might ask in the context suggested above: Is uncertainty counter-spiritual?

P.S.: I finally got my Amazon delivery including J. Wells, 'Icons of Evolution'. Looking forward to reading it next month.

Thomas

You and a few others do not seem to know the meaning of the word 'inherent'. A thing of course exists in itself, ie. inherently, but not of itself, ie. by itself alone.

I must say I am inclined to agree with this.

Ten thousand is a metaphorical number. The one gives rise to the two, the two to the three, and the three to the ten thousand things, etc.

<span style="color:white;">Leo: Will you just stop a minute and look at what you're saying? How can these scientists possibly know that these so-called non-causal processes were in fact without cause?</span>

Leo, if you believe in causality, then please explain the clicks in a Geiger counter, or more precisely: explain the intervals between the clicks, or give us a deterministic model to calculate these intervals; at the very least tell us what you think accounts for them.

Thomas

Is that some sort of device for detecting radioactivity? Well, I'd have to see one, examine one.
Then i could tell you why it clicks!

Leo

You don't have to get a real Geiger counter. The operating principle is explained here: <a href="http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education ... er.html</a> We know WHY it clicks. What we are after are the intervals between the clicks. I brought up the Geiger counter, because it is a tool that makes electrons audible and thus illustrates random particle events.

Thomas

Thomas wrote:

Quote:Quote:<hr>I brought up the Geiger counter, because it is a tool that makes electrons audible and thus illustrates random particle events.<hr>

Lots of things are random. It might be useful to know some of the causes of what makes a click exactly when it does, but it's not necessarily useful from a practical perspective, and may not be possible because of the limitations of our measuring and computational abilities.

Well, i knew that my answer wasnt going to cover it for you, but i was hoping for a bit more from you before answering more completely since i know little about how the device works and neither was it entirely clear what it is you were after.

And im still not sure, though Kevin may be both sure and accurate. Was he?

Leo

<span style="color:white;">Kevin: Lots of things are random.</span>

That's a funny thing to say for a determinist, don't you think?

<span style="color:white;">It might be useful to know some of the causes of what makes a click exactly when it does, but it's not necessarily useful from a practical perspective, and may not be possible because of the limitations of our measuring and computational abilities.</span>

Our measuring and computation abilities are good enough to measure the periodicity of radioactive decay. The phenomenon seems completely random. What explanations do you have? Does radioactive material behave like a nonlinear random number generator? Or could it have to do with "quantum indeterminacy"?

Thomas

Thomas wrote:

Quote:Quote:<hr>Kevin: Lots of things are random.

T: That's a funny thing to say for a determinist, don't you think?<hr>

Not at all. Things are random because they are caused to be random. Determinism and predictability are two different things. Why do you think that all caused events should be predictable to us, when we don't even know what is causing those events?

Quote:Quote:<hr>Our measuring and computation abilities are good enough to measure the periodicity of radioactive decay. The phenomenon seems completely random.<hr>

Of course - it doesn't take much to know that. What I was saying was that we may never be able to adequately predict precisely an individual event of radioactive decay, because of the limitations of our ability to observe the causes of the event and compute the causes and effects involved.

In the case of throwing a dice, we probably know some of the causes of what face of the dice shows up, and can go some way towards making a prediction of each individual throw, but in the case of radioactive decay, it is much more difficult.

Quote:Quote:<hr>What explanations do you have? Does radioactive material behave like a nonlinear random number generator? Or could it have to do with "quantum indeterminacy"?<hr>

"Quantum indeterminacy" only means that there are things we can't determine things on the quantum realm, and that is for the reasons I explain above.

It is akin to the indeterminacy of throwing a dice, the only difference being that we believe we know some of the specific causes operating in deciding the throw of a dice.

Radioactive decay might occur when the atom is hit by some kind of particle we know nothing of.

.

The problem with science is that it deals with detail, it is technical in nature. As you can see by the above discussion (and most discussions here), finite details can be picked selectively, made into an argument and blown out of importance – making it appear to others of like mind that the overriding principle may be incorrect. Thomas is doing this to try and indicate that cause and effect may not be an overriding principle.

Philosophy is more pure in that it deals with the overriding principles. That is why science and mathematics etc are mere specialised derivatives of philosophy. Philosophy is the study of wisdom. Wisdom is simply applied logic and logic is the process of understanding cause and effect. No science can mean anything and would not exist without logic, otherwise science would be merely consist of things like astrology and magic (emotionally based).

The same problem of detail applies to emotions, individual issues tend to become exaggerated and other relevant issues ignored. Women are the masters of selectively picking finite details.

In a way what enlightenment does, in examining and removing emotional attachments (all attachments TV, drugs etc are emotional), is allow one to see the whole, to see the basic principle, allowing the enlightened individual to become logically consistent.

Because people ego’s give them a sense that they inherently exist, they tend to consider things mostly from the detail of what is now. Human consciousness as it is now is not just now, the basic principle of what we are now is that this nowness is a mere segment of the totality. To properly understand human behaviour, one must take into account the causes and effects that applied over the millions of years involved the evolution of our consciousness (we were conscious before we were human).

Masculine and feminine issues are often taken out of context for this reason.

Quote:Quote:<hr>Kev: Even if you are certain of uncertainty, it doesn't say anything about whether things are caused or not.

DT: I didn't say, or imply, anything to the contrary.

You may not have said that I did say anything to the contary, but you implied it.

Kev: You did say "It proves the fact that there is nothing there to know, definitely."<hr>
Indeed I did. However, as previously stated, i did not say anything to the contrary of your statememnt "Even if you are certain of uncertainty, it doesn't say anything about whether things are caused or not."

There is no antithesis here for you to debate.


Quote:Quote:<hr>Kev: But there may well be something there which we can know, and which we do not currently know.<hr>
Nope, whilst you are quite right in asserting that the certainty of Uncertainty doesn't say anything about whether things are caused or not, you are quite wrong in asserting the above. It is because the Uncertainty is quite-quite certain, and why Heisenberg's statement was phrased as such. Perhaps you should look into it.


Quote:Quote:<hr>Kev: However, this extra knowledge of what lies behind quantum events doesn't mean that we will all of a sudden be able to determine things that were previously indeterminable.<hr>
There is no such thing as extra knowledge of what you refer to here. However, hypothetically, if there were, it would not be "extra knowledge of what lies behind quantum events", it would be extra knowledge of what lies beyond Uncertainty theory, and nothing more.

Quote:Quote:<hr>There is no such thing as extra knowledge of what you refer to here. However, hypothetically, if there were, it would not be "extra knowledge of what lies behind quantum events", it would be extra knowledge of what lies beyond Uncertainty theory, and nothing more.<hr>

Fair enough.

Quote:Quote:<hr>In a way what enlightenment does, in examining and removing emotional attachments (all attachments TV, drugs etc are emotional), is allow one to see the whole, to see the basic principle, allowing the enlightened individual to become logically consistent. - jimhaz<hr>
So many people here write as if they were enlightened yet those who make no such claims are consistently more coherent, or they are anyway in this thread. I have no grounding in the sciences but I have read a little eastern psychology. In that respect, if the transmission of wisdom is causeless why all this concern for insisting upon even co-dependent origination? If a cause cannot be known how much moreso a group of causes? If enlightenment is supposedly an unburdening from conceptualization why are so many people here clinging to their pretty concepts and refusing to let them go?

If enlightenment is supposedly an unburdening from conceptualization why are so many people here clinging to their pretty concepts and refusing to let them go

Because without understanding that which is are the basic underlying principle, all conceptual thoughts may be mistaken. You can't play cricket very well if you don't know the rules.

I'm not enlightened, and have never professed such, I have too many attachments. I simply have a degree of imagination.

People cling to their petty concepts because of emotion and the sum of past cuases.

I'm actually a fan of science.

Enlightenment is not about unburdening from conceptualization. It is about experiencing true understanding and true thoughts.

The concept of cause and effect, for example, when properly understood, is a true thought and needs to be protected against the false mythologies which currently surround quantum mechanics.