Those words staved me off the path of searching for a teacher. A path in which I’d assign my “enlightenment” to someone else and only through them would I become “free.” This is a path we all, at one point or another, can easily find ourselves caught up in. As the psychotherapist and author Sheldon Kopp once said, “If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.” Kopp goes on to say, “The most important things that each man must learn, no one else can teach him. Once he accepts this disappointment, he will be able to stop depending on the therapist, the guru who turns out to be just another struggling human being.”

Rather than seeking a teacher to show me the way, I needed to become the way myself, through my own practice, through deep contemplation, through Shikantaza.

Idolizing a teacher is one side of the dilemma. The other lies in the teachings themself. Over the life of our spiritual practice, there may be times when we begin to conceptualize the nonconceptual. We begin to “know” rather than remain open to. When we cling strongly to what we have learned, it becomes easy for us to be convinced that we get it, and in fear of losing it, we begin to hold tightly to it. This fixation ends up becoming a crutch towards our growth. The teacher and teachings are both useful and to some degree, necessary, so they should be utilized, but both also must, ultimately, be allowed to drop away. For one to truly grow in spiritual practice we must let go. Let go of all concepts and remain in an attitude of openness, eagerness, and without preconceptions. A state known, among Zen practitioners, as “beginner’s mind.”

https://www.lionsroar.com/if-you-meet-the-buddha-on-the-road-kill-him/

You tell me how so. :grin:

They’re known as saṃskara or sankhara in Indian disciplines: — Wayfarer

Direct insight into saṃskara is obtainable through insight meditation (vipasyana) and other meditative disciplines. No brain scanner required! — Wayfarer

I recognize that around the world, and through much of recorded history, people have had a degree of insight into this aspect of how our minds work, but rather "through a glass darkly" I think, by comparison with having a practical understanding of the nature of Hebbian learning in neural networks.

I see Zen as containing the rudiments of an intuition readjustment 'technology', with the Zen master engaging in "direct transmission" that results in students experiencing a breakdown of their old intuitions and replacement of discarded intuitions with new more robust intuitions. In some cases it involves a sudden dramatic epiphany - satori.

Of course Zen too is seeing "through a glass darkly" but it gave us, "If you see the Buddha on the road kill him.", which is a plus.

But is the exercise really meaningful if it doesn't reveal some new, third type of analysis? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I know next to nothing about Hegel, so I don't have any thoughts about the sort of third type of analysis you are speculating about.

I do think there is are important things that we can do to improve the results of our thinking, based on understanding the neurological processes our thinking arises from. One thing of relevance is the deeply subconscious basis for our intuitions, and the fact that those aren't something that we can turn around overnight. Taking the long view is important.

Of course training our neural nets with a diverse training set is of great value. I.e. getting a well rounded education. But it's pretty clear you've got that covered. :cool:

The velocity of the patch in contact with the ground is zero with respect to the ground, unless you've lost traction.

Although only when looking at things kind of simplistically. Heisenberg's principle applies, whether you are looking close enough to notice or not.

Hence the tectonic shift in modern philosophy toward scepticism and relativism. — Wayfarer

LOL

You are one skeptical dude yourself Wayf. You just haven't developed the knack of turning your skepticism towards your own intuitions.

What's funny is that these is an inverse problem, the "Scandal of Deduction," where you can also show that deduction generates absolutely no new information. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say we should take the problems seriously and recognize that our intuition and logic both have weaknesses, but they can be used synergistically. One of the most epistemically valuable things we can use our deductive abilities for is to find flaws in our own intuitions, and in recognizing flaws in our intuitions, become open to new more robust intuitions.

Utilizing that synergy, along with paying attention to nature, seems to me, a key characteristic of scientific thought.

What's the purely deductive argument that secures the premise "documents we possess are a reliable record of past events?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why focus on whether there is a purely deductive argument? Logic is at best as good as its inputs, and the inputs to our logic are our intuitive deep learning. It is pattern recognition that has resulted in our recognition of the pattern of documents being reliable records of past events.

:up:

Quote from Hume: — Moliere

Very good quote. Of course Hume didn't have the opportunity to understand this, but the quote suggests at least intuitive recognition on Hume's part, of how deep learning is manifested in human thinking.

It's not that everything is reducible to some amorphous and expansive idea of "the physical" but rather that everything is reducible to physics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This doesn't touch my physicalism, because I don't see everything as reducible to physics. I don't know of any physicalist, who if given the choice, would say that they believe everything reduces to physics, as against everything reduces to the physical. Now I could easily imagine a physicalist saying in a sloppy way that everything reduces to physics, but I would simply intepret that as a figure of speech that is commonly used to refer to the physical (at least in some crowds).

I see us as forces of nature. Something like godawfully complicated tornados that interact with the world they progress through, and most interestingly to social primates like us, interact with their fellow forces of nature in complex ways. I don't know of any good reason to think that consciousness can't be a characteristic of such complex forces of nature.

Personally, I see strong correlations between the way our minds work and the physical structures they supervene on, but that is not something one gets to recognize well, without a fair bit of study. I don't expect others to have the same recognition, because few have studied the diverse relevant fields with an eye towards developing such understanding for the last 37 years. It's not something I claim any particular credit for. It's just the way things turned out in my case.

I think the biggest impediment to accepting physicalism for most is incredulity. I simply don't have the incredulity that many people have. When I was younger I did, so I can understand being incredulous towards physicalism. But it just so happens I've had the weirdass life experience that I have had, resulting in me not sharing that incredulity.

I also recognize that many would find it emotionally challenging to consider physicalism in a charitably credulous way. I can understand that as well. I've had a long time to get emotionally adjusted to this view.

Still argument from incredulity and appeal to consequences are fallacious as bases for rejecting physicalism, so folks might want to take that into consideration.

The question of science re Hume as a whole is sort of interesting, as his attack on induction would seem to cut the legs out from underneath the entire scientific project. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I expect a transition from concern with induction, to greater recognition of pattern recognition as naturally occurring as a matter of our neurology. I.e. a more naturalized epistemology that more accurately capture what really occurs in our thinking than the idea of induction does.

Not that I think this will keep a lot of philosophers from allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I think worrying about induction is barking up the wrong tree. People tying themselves in philosophical knots isn't going to stop scientists from making progress using the cognitive tools we have, so scientifically it's a pseudoproblem.

To me it seems like arguments that god does not exist are weak, and arguments that it does exist are even weaker. — mentos987

:up:

My WNA was a bit of a hoax, where I reworded the Kalam Cosmological Argument as presented by theologian/philosopher William Lane Craig, and presented the very slightly modified argument as an argument for atheism. The originator of that forum thread then proceeded to attack the WNA, using all the same logic he would reject if directed at the KCA.

Nice try! Much appreciated by myself, but wooists gonna woo.

Not first thing in the morning — frank

No energy until coffee.

The modern period is defined by the success of applying mathematics to the world, and over time Plato gets inverted. Now there is no problem with the world, it exemplifies perfect mathematical beauty, but with the the mind. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps a relevant aspect of the inversion - I'd say contra Plato's anamnesis, that we are all born ignorant and we are all going to die only somewhat less ignorant.

(Not that I know much about Plato's thinking that hasn't come from secondary and tertiary sources.)
@Fooloso4

Why not let things as they are? The forum works well, and most of the threads are active. — javi2541997

:100:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

To me it seems the argument comes to a dead halt with "Define "God"", why would we be able to define god? I am not a believer but if a god were to exist outside of our world, it would seem utterly hopeless to try to define it. — mentos987

There are a lot of Christians out there, who interpret Romans 1:18-20 as saying that everyone actually knows God exists.

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. - [NIV]

Such Christians tend to interpret requests that they define God as an indication of dishonesty on the part of atheists.

metaphysically impossible, but actually and logically possible. — Bob Ross

What does 'actually possible' mean? I would have thought that metaphysical impossibility precludes actual possibility.

Meh, I was not impressed. — mentos987

Yeah, there's some esoteric knowledge required to get the joke.

Wonderer Neurological Argument, of course.

For those poor atheists, bereft of a positive argument, I present this thread from another forum:

Re: Atheist contrivances used to avoid presenting the case for their beliefs

In that thread you will find the WNA which will provide what you lack.

And yes, I am a bit jaded. :razz:

...a puzzle piece but a lot more is going on. — Mark Nyquist

Sure. There is lots more to look into, and our technology is crude next to the complexity to be understood.

Something that is important to physicalism is the question of how does the brain hold some specific item of subject matter. One mobel could be than it is somehow encoded directly into specific brain matter but I don't think that is how it works. Help me out if you know more. — Mark Nyquist

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebbian_theory

Then you aren't certain, you just have a high degree of confidence. — Hallucinogen

So atheists have a high degree of confidence that God doesn't exist. The label "atheist" is useful to convey that. Do you see a problem with people using the word that way?

Maybe He just wants you to think you are… — AmadeusD

Do you think that is the case with all people who believe themselves to be autistic?

Anyway, don't answer. I've threadjacked too much already.

From God's perspective, prior to creation, it was what is "necessary" in the sense of needed or wanted. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you think God wanted me to be autistic, or needed me to be autistic?

Newton 'stands on the shoulders of giants'. That constitutes authority... — Wayfarer

I think you misinterpret. I read that statement as an expression of humility, and recognizing the role of earlier thinkers in Newton being able to achieve what he did. I've never heard anyone suggest it is a claim to authority.

It is difficult to disentangle from scientism, the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion or marginalization of any other perspective. — Wayfarer

I'd suggest replacing "authoritative" with "reliable". Authority doesn't really have anything to do with it.

The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba' is taken to mean 'take nobody's word for it'. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.
https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/

It about being able to talk about the same thing at two different levels of abstraction, what is viewed as the emergent level and the pre-emergent level.
— wonderer1

Maybe.

I think a supervenience relationship of A upon B is a bit weaker than being able to talk about some A phenomenon/property in terms of some distinct set of B phenomenon/properties. All you need to say that A supervenes upon B is that there can be no A difference without a B difference - you don't need to know a correspondence between A and B, just provide an existential guarantee.

How you flesh out the "cannot" in "There cannot be an A difference without a B difference" is also very important. Since, say, if cannot means "physically impossible", it could still be logically possible that there can be an A difference without a B difference. So an established supervenience relationship in terms of physical possibility could still allow a failure of supervenience relationship in terms of logical possibility between the same A and B to fail. — fdrake

For me supervenience is an epistemic tool I typically use in what I'll call a visuo-intuitive sort of way, without seeing a need for a logically rigorous definition. It is more an essential perspective in the high accuracy measurment instrument design that I do, that involves cognitively zooming in and out between a closer to fundamental physics perspective and higher level design concept perspective.

It seems to me that skill at using such an epistemic tool develops mostly subconsciously in people who consider systems in an indepth manner, due to the limits of human cognitive faculties that simply aren't capable of considering the workings of a complex system in fundamental physics terms. I'd think that most who have developed such cognitive skills have never heard the word "supervenience" and wouldn't see much value in a rigorous definition of something they do intuitively.

Anyway, logical possibilities are for marketing. Engineers get stuck with disabusing the marketing people of their logically possible fantasies, and designing within the vastly more restrictive realm of the physically possible.

Cartesian desert-based approaches , which are assumed to arise from the deliberately willed actions of an autonomous, morally responsible subject, are harsher and more ‘blameful' in their views of justice than deterministic , non-desert based modernist approaches and postmodern accounts, which rest on shaping influences (bodily-affective and social) outside of an agent's control. — Joshs

I'm seeing more clealy where the :100: :smile: came from. :wink:

Extraordinarily well stated.

How is what I said a reification of physicalism? What could that mean? — Banno

I'll leave you to think about it.

Banno embodies a jester. Once you realize that his posts are easily understood. — Philosophim

Well, a fucking brilliant jester, and I enjoy a lot of what he has to say. So I'll leave that there. :wink:

LOL

I'm an eye witness, and you are a gaslighter.

Hmm. What is it you are disagreeing with?

What I did was to suggest that we cold simplify the issue of what "physicalism" is by sticking to physics. — Banno

I think reifying "physicalism" as you seem to be doing is kind of silly. The word "physicalism" is a label people use for a set of perspectives some people have.

You seem intent on setting up a strawman, rather than deal with the perspectives of individuals who find it to be a useful label.

By punished I mean disqualified from the ballot. Do you think someone should be disqualified from the ballot for a crime he has not been proven to commit? — NOS4A2

The Constitution lays out the criteria for being disqualified. I already pointed this out.

He incited insurrection. That you are unable to recognize that seems to be a problem you have, but I've spent more than enough time on your sophistry for today.

More like
...being able to talk about the same thing at two different levels of abstraction,
— wonderer1
...removing the unnecessary emergent stuff. Physics does not make substantive use of the notion of substance... (see what I did there?) — Banno

:lol:
Yeah, I see what you did there on multiple levels. However, the person you quoted looks at things at various level including physics, chemistry, biology neuroscience, psychology, etc. So unfortunately you still haven't come up with a quote to support your claim. Care to try again?

But due process, right to a fair trial, and free speech are. And justice demands that one ought not be punished for something he didn’t do. — NOS4A2

Due process is ongoing.

And punished? He is raising money on his notoriety.

The suggestion cuts out the interminable fluff of substance versus materialism versus naturalism and so on seen here.The stuff found in physics texts serves to tie down the term"physicalism". — Banno

So are you saying it's a rhetorical ploy? Attempting to manipulate people into seeing things as you wish?

Feel free to explain, but I'll take that as a, "No.", to my question "Can you quote anyone calling herself a physicalist saying anything remotely like that?"