TESTING the results of two different ways of thinking

by Terry 172 Replies latest jw friends

zen nudist

Science is rational because there is a measurable ratio between the claims and the testing and the data. Anybody anywhere can look at it and repeat the experiment. In fact, they MUST have repeatable results or it isn't considered science!

in some fantasy world this may be true, one of your own subjective invention perhaps? are you dreaming this is so or can you actually prove it? can you prove that other people actually exist and you are not dreaming everything you know, including their agreement with your dreamed tests?
objectivity is a myth that science was once based upon, but quantum physics has cast much of that mythology aside by showing we cant know more than we can measure and how we measure always interfers with the results... heisenberg demonstrated quite adequately that there are significant boundries to knowledge which no one under any circumstance can go beyond and to date no one has proven him wrong.... there are still bizzarre beliefs associated with quantum physics held by reputable scientists as they cannot yet find any other rational means of explaining the results of their tests....
yet and still all of this is based on the assumption that others actually exist and that what we perceive and measure in common bears any resemblance to reality....
if we are all sharing a matrix like dream the best we can do is to test what is in it, which may not resemble reality one bit.... a possibility, Terry, you consistanly ignore... yet your distain for such a possibility and rejection of it does not make it vanish...not can it...
and you are not being rational nor logical by whole sale rejection of a possibility simply because it does not fit your world view.
Pole

zen,
Just because there's a certain amount of arbitary epistemological and ontological consensus among scientists, you can't put science on equal footing with matrix fantasy theories. Why do you get on a Boeing plane and why don't you jump off the cliff? Just because there is quantum mechanics, you can't dicard the good old gravity as nihilistic delusions.
Why do we constatnly confuse scientific models with reality?
Pole
Terry

Then all we can test and measure is the healthy breeding and fattening of the human herd. For such elusive values as "happiness" or "joy" we lack objective assessment tools. Or do we

Happiness and joy are emotions. The emotions are conceptual. The concepts represents a value placed on something. A value is something we seek to obtain and keep. The exchange rate for values can be measured in terms of what we trade to obtain them.
For example, what do we spend our time (time=life) on? If we spend our quality time, our money and our efforts in pursuit of the thing which brings us happiness or joy (pay attention here) THE AMOUNT of time spent, the AMOUNT of money spent, the AMOUNT of effort expended represents the quantity of the value.
If I say I LOVE you; this statement represents the highest possible value I can place on somebody. Now, how do I represent this LOVE value? I spend time with you, I think about you, I spend money on you, I exhange what I have to exchange for the opportunity of continuing my relationship with you. I BACK UP MY CLAIM by actual goods and services in aid of a relationship.
If you have two people who say they love you and only one of them represents the VALUE of their love by actions (time and money, for example) exhanged in pursuit of you; don't you think it would be pretty clear which love represents ACTUAL value?
Happiness and Joy are subjective EXPERIENCES, don't get me wrong. However, you asked about the ASSESSMENT TOOLS pertaining to the "elusive" values of happiness and joy in terms of quantifiable thinking.
WE TEST the expressions of people's professed values by what ACTIONS back them up. A man who says he loves his girlfriend, but, who cheats on her represents his "love" in a way that devalues its exchange rate, wouldn't you say?
I'm not sure why we are discussing this. Why did you ask the question? Be that as it may....
We could state your query in terms of RATIONAL thinking vs MYSTICISM rather easily, however.
The person who asserts they love something can be our test case.
Love which is "rational" is measurable by the effort in real time/goods/services exchanged to represent that value.
Love which is mystical would be a mere assertion of "feeling" detached from actual proof of the value UNTIL and UNLESS the standard of behavior is determined.
I know people just get all crazy when you try to quantify emotions. But, that is their problem. A practical person measures the actual value of professed emotions all the time IN TERMS OF the behavioral evidence demonstrated toward those emotions.
Let us take the PROFESSION OF LOVE from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society as an example. Their professed love among the brothers and sisters is Mystical because it fails the test, the empirical test, of meeting the needs of the rank and file members. It isn't backed up by actions representing value in terms of everyday life such as education, economics, psychological vulnerability, etc. It is represented much the way counterfeit money represents a FACE VALUE not backed up by intrinsic value. The Faithful and Discreet Slave misrepresent the hard value of their currency (so to speak) as coming from God and directed by his spirit and his King, Jesus. Yet, the counterfeit bills they exchange do not add value to the lives of the people who enter the transaction with them in good faith.
The rank and file members actual spend their OWN time, their OWN money and their OWN good will to obtain the counterfeit currency from the Watcthtower criminals: TRUTH. But, the exchange rate cannot allow the brothers and sisters to CONVERT the currency into useable goods and services in return. That is why it is counterfeit. The Watchtower currency, being counterfeit, is MYSTICAL and not actual; not rational and not temporal and testable.
Everything Watchtower is MYSTICAL and represents UNPROVABLE value. The membership buys in to the ILLUSION (mystical) and simply agrees to ACT AS THOUGH the value is really there when it obviously (eventually) is not. The ratio (rational) of actual goods, services, time, money, etc. comes from the brothers and sisters and is ACCOUNTED FOR by the Wacthtower STATISTICALLY. Do you know why on this one thing they are suddenly willing to be RATIONAL? Because they themselves recognize wealth must be PROVABLE to have value to them! Real Estate contains the word "real" doesn't it? That is why they purchase so much of it. To profit from the Mystical somebody always has their hand out for an actual value. The crime of it is that the Mystic exchanges mere illusion, promise, make-believe and assertion for the REAL value given them by the dupes who believe them.
But, I digress.
You get the point.
T.
Confession

The Mystical vs. The Rational... I enjoy discussions with both camps, although I find myself generally leaning to the rational. Terry, you often use the word "assert" or "assertion." I do as well. You are disgusted when someone asserts something they cannot prove with data.
I believe my existence is factual, and I haven't yet been able to find a more rational explanation for my existence than creation. This means I believe there is a God. I cannot prove it, no. Does the rationalist conclude that, since God is not proven with data, there must be no God? Well perhaps I will one day find how that may be true, but presently I believe the idea that human life sprang into existence without the direction of an intelligent designer--that it just "happened"--is an awfully "mystical" belief.
I must admit that I have not experienced unexplained phenomena in my life. I will also confess that I believe a good lot of it is imagined. But friends whose opinions I respect have related personal experiences to me which suggest that "the supernatural" does exist. While I will never accept these things as fact merely from their testimony, like Tetrapod, I am willing to conclude...
i could be wrong. can you do the same?
As you have well demonstrated, many sad things have resulted from those who are held captive by the mystical. I will also submit that many sad things have resulted from people who hardheadedly insist that the view they hold is the only correct one.
So many of us enjoy reading (most of) what you write. It's also clear that you enjoy debate. Great. But a little respect please. If not the "respect" that suggests those who disagree on this subject might actually be correct--that's okay. But how about the "respect" that doesn't resort to scornfully belittling those with whom you disagree? I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Terry

zen,

Just because there's a certain amount of arbitary epistemological and ontological consensus among scientists, you can't put science on equal footing with matrix fantasy theories. Why do you get on a Boeing plane and why don't you jump off the cliff? Just because there is quantum mechanics, you can't dicard the good old gravity as nihilistic delusions.

Why do we constatnly confuse scientific models with reality?

Pole

There is no accountability when you blur the difference between mental masturbation and the real world. Science is essentially an accounting procedure. Measuring, weighing, quantifying actually existing phenomena is a FAR CRY from merely alluding to them with language.
Yesterday at work I was temporarily assigned to the Metaphysics department in the bookstore.
I had to shelve books entirely Mystical in nature! The absolute BULLSHIT contained in those books made me queasy, as you can quite imagine!
The essential element in all of them was the ABUSE OF LANGUAGE!
Words were not used for their concrete referential meanings. Words were used for their inferences and floating conceptual evocations DETACHED from ostensible definition.
In other words, for you non-semanticists, the words in Mystical books PRETEND to mean "something" (just what exactly is deliberately vague) but cannot be pinned down to actuality.
Being non-quantifiable; they are useless to describe reality in a meaningful way other than the way Poetry is "about" life metaphorically.
Take the word ENERGY as an example. Mystics could not ever be expected to define this word or they'd go bankrupt. They use it to mean the most vague nonsense imaginable. And imagination is all it is.
As Pole rightly stated: models of reality are not reality. To represent reality there has to be a measurable one to one ratio in the measurment equivalency verifiable and the same for everybody everywhere. That is why science represents Knowledge while Mysticism represents Bullshit.
T.
Terry

As you have well demonstrated, many sad things have resulted from those who are held captive by the mystical. I will also submit that many sad things have resulted from people who hardheadedly insist that the view they hold is the only correct one.
So many of us enjoy reading (most of) what you write. It's also clear that you enjoy debate. Great. But a little respect please. If not the "respect" that suggests those who disagree on this subject might actually be correct--that's okay. But how about the "respect" that doesn't resort to scornfully belittling those with whom you disagree? I look forward to reading more of your posts.

I respect people, but, not their bullshit. I separate the two.

Mysticism is pure bullshit. Those persons who pretend they have access to knowledge of a higher value but say their source is invisible people in the sky are not really being respectful, are they? A magician hides what is phoney from view so that his audience can be fooled for the sake of enjoyment. A Mystic hides what is phoney from his OWN VIEW to cling to the elusive invisible rewards promised to them (eventually.......they hope.) Anybody can fool themselves and that is fine with me. But, don't try to convince me without some measure of sanity that your self-deception should be honored in the marketplace of ideas ON THE SAME PLATFORM as real ideas backed up by quantifiable proof.

Do you know what makes many professional Gamblers reprehensible people to their family and loved ones? RISK! Gamblers are willing (all too willing!) to risk actual value for "possible" rewards. This places their assets in a vulnerable state. When you lose your assets you experience ruination. You not only ruin your own life; but, you drag others down with you. Often the very people who love you most are ruined by the backwash of the foolish risks of assets for "possible" reward.

A Gambler is a type of Mystic in their thinking. You know why I say that? The Mystic risks the reality they actually possess for the "possible" rewards of their unprovable imaginary mindset. Worse, they drag others down with them.

I don't respect people who pretend and pass it off as for real. It is compulsive gambling with the mind. What you lose is your grip on sanity at worst.

As an Ex JW I can tell you I gambled away my youth to win Jehovah's approval. I gambled two years for a prison sentence in exchange for the reward of Paradise after Armageddon.

The time I crapped away I can never get back and the reward I pursued will never come either.

I took others down with me! I am deeply ashamed of the fact I used my "integrity" to lure my family into the "Truth" and spoil their lives too. I argued with them using bullshit scriptures and phoney promises of God and the New Order. I infected others with my thinking. My good intentions are no excuse. Damage done.

Why do I post here on JWD? Just to run my mouth? Just to delight in debate? Hardly! This takes time out of my life I could otherwise spend on other things.

I am trying to add value to the lives of others to buy back my sense of loss at having harmed others with my Mystical thinking.

I want to perform what the Jews call World Repair or a Mitzvah.

I owe!

I will fight mystical thinking and I will disprespect it because it is an evil brought about through the failure of will to submit one's thinking to the sane tests of reality.

You say you seek to "explain" your existence? I say, bullshit!

You cannot EXPLAIN something by resorting to unprovable invisible entities who run the universe from a throneroom in the great beyond. That is madness!

You ENJOY the idea of somebody running things whom you can befriend for benefit. It is something you can grasp and maybe profit from (eventually) using such a mental construct. But, know this, my friend, YOU ARE BEING INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST when you resort to bullshit to fool yourself.

You are a gambler risking for the sake of profit. It is a deplorable waste of your mind.

Give yourself a better asset than the unprovable. Demand a higher standard of yourself in your thinking than your whims and wishes.

But, don't show up here and tell me I have to demonstrate respect for the compulsive bilge coughed up from people's mind-toilets in the form of UNPROVABLE ASSERTIONS.

Mysticism is a disease. It is contagious. It invalidates your rational mind. Your rational mind IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN YOU and the kill and eat world.

I fight mysticism. I disrespect it and the mental illness it represents.

I respect people; not their crazy notions.

T.
Terry

ZEN NUDIST: objectivity is a myth that science was once based upon, but quantum physics has cast much of that mythology aside by showing we cant know more than we can measure and how we measure always interfers with the results... heisenberg demonstrated quite adequately that there are significant boundries to knowledge which no one under any circumstance can go beyond and to date no one has proven him wrong.... there are still bizzarre beliefs associated with quantum physics held by reputable scientists as they cannot yet find any other rational means of explaining the results of their tests....

This is what happens to your mind when you read Fritjof Capra and the TAO OF PHYSICS!
Zen Buddhism: A distillation of mystic Buddhism from India, thru Taoist China, to Japan, about 1200 A.D. The object is the attainment of enlightenment, or satori. This is its only goal, and Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no formal creeds or dogmas. Mystical “If one asks about the Tao and another answers him, neither of them knows it” satori being beyond words or intellect. Zen believes in the perfection of our original nature, and enlightenment is in becoming what we already are from the beginning. Sitting meditation is emphasized. Thru the perfection of the arts, Zen life is expressed by the spontaneity, simplicity and total presence of mind of the master. Real mastery is achieved when technique is transcended and the art becomes an 'artless art' growing out of the unconscious.
This empty philosophy is what fuels your thinking?
The key word here is "unconscious".
Heisenberg simply showed that you interfer with what you measure because you intrude. Big deal!
Your mental bank account shows zero balance if you are at the sorry state where you assert that "objectivity is a myth".
How can I reason with you now that you've opened up your cranium and removed the contents only to replace it with the emptiness of Zen?
I mourn the loss, my friend, I really do.
Mystics are irresponsible mind-rapists who perform lobotomies on willing patients to enable them to smile while they droll nonsense.
T.
Confession

Out of all the points I would wish to make regarding your last, I will settle upon only one...
You ENJOY the idea of somebody running things whom you can befriend for benefit. It is something you can grasp and maybe profit from (eventually) using such a mental construct.
You do not know me, nor what I enjoy. Would you say it's possible you have just made an "assertion" without sufficient factual data, one of those things for which you yourself have much disdain?
Terry

You do not know me, nor what I enjoy. Would you say it's possible you have just made an "assertion," one of those things for which you yourself have much disdain?

I see the hair is up on the back of your neck.
Why not let's be civil little lads and take this "outside". Send me a private messege and we'll slog out of view of the other kids.
You've gone all wonky on me and it isn't a pretty sight.
T.
Confession

Hmmm... Hair on the back of my neck? Wonky? Really not at all. It was a simple question. I appreciate your desire to be civil. That's my interest, yes. Love to shoot you a PM as soon as I can, but just leaving my hotel for the day. I'll try to log on tonight.
Best,
Confession

TESTING the results of two different ways of thinking

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