With 'mindfulness' i see at best a superfluous concept, and at worst a detrimental and mistaken ideology. — sime

There is good literature on the benefits of mindfulness in treating borderline personality disorder (which is very challenging to work with) and I have seen astonishing results in clinical practice situations over the years so I am not a total skeptic on this.

I'm trying to figure out what that "something else entirely" actually is. — Average

Yes, that's a key question many people come to ask.

You were fine and I was just teasing out the nuances of 'mental midget'. I guess the conventional wisdom is that people are divided into low IQ (at some point it is a disability) and high IQ (at some point it is genius level).

I know from working with people who have intellectual disabilities that they are often frustrated and angered by their inability to understand or accomplish tasks and activities the rest of the community takes for granted.

I wasn't trying to insult you and I am sorry if that's how I came across.

I work in the area of mental health, suicidality and substance misuse so I am mindful of terminology.

What do you mean by something primitive?

You asked:

the best way of measuring someone's intelligence — Average

Who

I suggested:

'what is a genius' and 'what is a mental midget' — Tom Storm

What

All I was saying is that the concept needs to be understood or elucidated before we do the measuring. It's a small point and, possibly, the moment is passed...

Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. It's a very simple practice and idea. Too simple. — Wayfarer

Nice.

By the way the foundational text for mindfulness is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. It's a very simple practice and idea. Too simple. Then someone came out with 'The Miracle of Mindfulness' - aha! Miracle! We want miracles! Give me a miracle! How do I get that?! And the circus begins. — Wayfarer

Indeed. Generally people are always looking for gizmos and gadgets to make life more sparkling or to solve their perceived problems. Beliefs and methods can be every bit as faddish, collectable and disposable as kitchenalia.

Intelligence is a question that many consider controversial. Maybe because it is a subject generally understood and explored through psychologists who are widely hated.

question is unnecessary because the question "What is a genius?" is almost identical to the question "what is intelligence? — Average

No it's not. Shifting the question was suggested because you already (possibly unwittingly) used a common 'slander' for intellectual disability with the term 'mental midget'. "Thick" the word I used earlier is another. The point I was making is that the question 'who' may not be as informative as 'what'. That's the shift I recommended.

A genius may have a high intelligence, but the two things different. For my money a genius is generally someone who possesses exceptional skill or intelligence that they are able to put into practice in some endeavor. There are plenty of people with very high IQ's who are working in banal jobs.

I suspect that I'd get bogged down in a lot of useless irrelevant information. — Average

Here too I'm afraid. :wink:

In other words, how do we know if someone is a mental midget or a genius? — Average

There's plenty on how this is currently understood if you consult google.

My initial response would be shifting the question from 'how do we know if someone' to 'what is a genius' and 'what is a mental midget'. I'm assuming you seek to differentiate between those people who are unlearned from those with intellectual disabilities?

One thing I have noticed is any one who tells you they have a prodigious IQ of 135 (or whatever) is generally pretty thick.

Obviously, people on the forum have a right to express opinions, but the thread on 'changing sex' makes me feel so miserable that I am wondering if I wish to stop using the forum until it stops being the one popping up constantly — Jack Cummins

I understand, Jack. There's obviously fear, bigotry and transphobia playing out there and a lot of misrepresentation and distraction. Personally I made a statement in support for transgender people (I have known many) and I feel like this is the least I could do.

:rofl:

(and I find it so depressing that I try to ignore it mostly) — Jack Cummins

It's ugly and bigoted.

I found that some staff had particular difficulty coping with gay and transgender issues. That was mainly on the basis of fundamentalist religious beliefs. — Jack Cummins

Yes. People on philosophy sites tend to think of religion in its more sophisticated guises. The monstrous things it is still doing and teaching every day in the world is appalling.

As I said I have made my comment. Take it however you want.

Maybe you could drop the patronizing expressions like "Do you understand that?"

I thought you were going to say that we should abolish pop music (sign me up) and that people need to read more Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky.

Good for you. I've made my point.

nursing staff were evangelical Christians — Jack Cummins

That can be a problem. We sometimes see this in aged care services here because nursing staff tend to come from cultures and countries where literalism is the predominant expression of Christianity (or Islam). Dreadful stuff when trying to plan end of life for patients.

I think some conditions respond badly to it, but I forget which.

I am glad to hear that practitioners in your part of the world are looking to Eastern wisdom. — Jack Cummins

Amongst many in the helping professions I have found there is often an anti-Western bias - but sometimes an embrace of Eastern ideas is just a contemporary expression of Orientalism, which Edward Said critiqued so well decades ago. Nevertheless some people are eager to find tools which work, no matter where they come from.

Some people who use the term mindfulness seem almost oblivious to the roots of the word and idea. It does seem that this may be related to possible 'embarrassment' of its origins and how it has been underplayed within psychology. — Jack Cummins

I have experienced quite the opposite, many folk I know who have been mindfulness practitioners or therapists seem to think they are in touch with Buddhism and Eastern wisdom and are critiquing narrow Western patriarchy just by embracing this. That said, around my part of the world mindfulness seems to be going out of fashion after being a bit of a craze for a decade. I am not aware of all that many people finding it especially helpful, except in its initial novelty value. Like most modalities, it is likely to be practiced with varying levels of competence.

:up: I'm curious - can you give an example fo cultural enhancement?

To me that debate is pointless, because there can be no decidable resolution. From one perspective (the phenomenological) consciousness is fundamental. From another perspective,(the scientific) the physical is fundamental. Phenomenology brackets the question of the external world (the physical) and science brackets the question of the internal world (the phenomenological). We can learn from both inquiries, but why should we choose one over the other, especially since that would be to commit a category error. — Janus

I agree with the thrust of this. But don't most phenomenologists incorporate the scientific these days under the rubric of a provisional and fallibilistic intersubjective agreement?

Read the account of how Saul meets David. David plays the harp for him and they know each other well and then a chapter later he hears tale of this man David and insists upon meeting him, not knowing who he is. Interesting amnesiac event. — Hanover

Sounds like the infinite regress of Marvel superhero origin stories.

I'd care to beautify society and enhance culture so I can benefit too and everyone can feel just a smidge better. Basic stuff — Nils Loc

Hmmm. This is very far from 'basic stuff' and I doubt you would get much agreement as to what constitutes the notion of 'beautify' or 'enhance culture' in the current world of anti-foundationalism. Those words could come from the manifesto of Nazi's, or from an essay by an old-school aesthete.

Atheism is sometimes the absence, sometimes the rejection, of a belief. I mean the rejection. — ZzzoneiroCosm

No, rejection has no burden of proof. I reject belief in god/Bigfoot on the basis that the case has not been made.

Burden of proof applies to a positive claim: 'There is no God'. That's when the burden comes in.

This is my experience as well. If I read and try to understand a sacred text that I don't already believe in, the text becomes more and more trivial to me. I have seen that when people who already believe read their sacred texts, their faith increases, their sense of the sacredness of the text increases. — baker

True. I've seen the same phenomenon with believers reading Mein Kampf.

My objection is to premise one of Flew’s argument. My counterexample would be faith. In Christian tradition, faith is a necessary component to the belief in God. Thus, one cannot rely on “good evidence for something, to know that it is true.” In fact, if there had been indisputable evidence for the existence of God, faith would not be necessary — Jonah Wong

Faith is the excuse people give for believing when they don't have a good reason. It's a facile justification but we know it is very satisfying psychologically.

I was speaking with an Islamic man last week who told me that Jesus was a prophet, was not the son of God and someone else was crucified in Jesus' place. The common Islamic position. I asked how did he know this? "Faith!" came the certain response. The real problem with faith is that along with being disconnected from evidence, faith can be used to justify anything, from a belief that black people are inferior to white people, to stoning people to death for homosexuality. There is nothing that people can't justify with an appeal to faith.

Unless you want to argue that atheism doesn't qualify as "something"... — ZzzoneiroCosm

Correct. Atheism is just the absence of a belief in a god on the basis that the reasons provided are unconvincing. The atheist no more needs to disprove god than Bigfoot or the Tooth Fairy. A responsible atheist does not say 'there is no god" (that would require demonstration) they would say there is no good reason to accept the proposition.

If God allows unnecessary suffering, then God does not love everybody. — lish

Can you demonstrate that any suffering is unnecessary from god's perspective? How could people determine god's intended business?

Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy — Pantagruel

A haunting and desolate novel. Don't read it if you are feeling low...

Most people care about what happens after their death. Their values and axioms are not temporary. — Andrew4Handel

I don't. I'm here because I paid scant attention to philosophy when I was young and I am trying to work out if I missed anything. Answer: yes and no. I have been interested in clear thinking and justification and I am curious why people might believe in ideas I don't accept. That's the hook for me.

What exactly does it mean?" (What does that mean more precisely?)

and

"How do we know that it is so?" (How do you know that?) — spirit-salamander

I generally ask, "What difference does it make?"

In the end, there is a lot of information and detail that actually contributes nothing to knowledge or to a life lived, it's just clever (or not) twaddle.

A key problem with these questions is that they can't be appleid the same by each person, so the results are not just highly variable but inconsistent.

Take God. What exactly does it mean? Well, nothing to me - the idea is incoherent. To my friend the Priest, it means a vocation, a commitment, an ontological certainty.

How do we know it is so? Could hardly be a more divisive question, throwing into relief the presuppositions people hold which makes the question almost pointless.

You can't measure smoke with a ruler.

Etc....

It would be like saying that mathematics could render poetry unnecessary. — Janus

In some contexts this statement would be completely true. :razz:

I'm no expert here but it seems to me Kastrup - who is a very articulate communicator and does a great road show - is essentially riffing off Schopenhauer's idealism and updating it. K argues that humans are dissociated alters of cosmic consciousness and matter is what consciousness looks like when viewed from a certain perspective. Mind is all that exists. Importantly, like Schopenhauer, K argues that cosmic consciousness (Will) does not have a plan for existence, it is instinctive, does not communicate and is not a god surrogate. Much of Kastrup's model involves demonstrating how materialism is incoherent.

Other than creating a flurry of rebuttals or anxieties in the so called scientific physicalist community, what does the model give us? Does Kastrup straw man naturalism by reducing it to materialism? He's clearly benefiting enormously from the current gaps in the understanding of consciousness and quantum physics.

I fully expect people to have abandoned the assumption that mind comes from matter. It will happen a lot sooner than that. — RogueAI

Sounds like you are already a believer but I wonder if this is an argument from ignorance at work. Personally I am sympathetic to mysterianism. The question of climate change and other physically understood problems will matter a lot more in this timeframe than resolving the consciousness puzzle. Are you an idealist along Kastrup lines?

If science still has not made progress on these fundamental questions, say, a century from now, do you think people will start questioning the assumption that consciousness can come from matter? — RogueAI

I know this is not to me but... do facts run to a stopwatch? :wink: What if it takes 200 years? And it isn't just science that hasn't resolved these questions- - there is no agreed upon account outside of science or physicalism either. If we still can't explain consciousness using a superphysical explanation in 100 years, will people start questioning the assumption that consciousness is magic spirit?

But what has to be shown is how reason is by its nature worthy of being determinative in this way: Reason is entirely without content. In Kant's terms, it is "empty". It has no meaning whatever until empirical contents are there to be synthesized with it. That we are able to grasp the Pythagorean theorem shows reason to be useful! But usefulness to what end? Meaning is derived not from reason, but from the world and its value. If I were to think of what God is, it would certainly NOT be a hyperrational entity, for reason qua reason has no value at all. — Astrophel

This is to some extent my own instinctive sense of reason. I find it interesting how many believers with a philosophical bent still attempt to use reason to demonstrate that a belief in God is rational and necessary. But then what? Even if reason demonstrates that God is necessary, could it not be that a responsible human says 'fuck off' to the deity?

So when I say value is far more important (for it is a word that signifies importance itself) in describing a human being I don't mean say nothing else matters. Just that, if you will, this business of mattering, matters more than what else can be said. I think any undertaking one can take on, the value question is always begged: why bother at all to proceed? The question that haunts metaphysics is, why thrown into a world with this powerful dimension of affectivity? A rational inquiry into reason is certainly interesting and useful, but would be nothing at all if no one cared. — Astrophel

This also resonates with me. Some might argue that reason is at war with affectivity and that the latter must be tamed by rationality as it too readily leads to conflict and reactive behaviours with ourselves and others. Affectivity is surely the prime mover behind the best and worst in human behaviour as it tends to activate a transcendence of personal and cultural limitations and allows us to make 'impossible' choices for good or ill.

Argument layout:
In the Christian view, God saves us from our suffering.
When God is not saving us from our suffering, They [God] are allowing it to continue.
One would never inflict unnecessary suffering upon someone they loved.
In Chrisianity, God loves everyone.
Thus, Christianity is false. — makayla harris

I don't think these premises are all that strong, to be honest. The conclusion at best would be that God may be different in nature than some versions of Christianity would have us believe.

Take your first premise. In the Christian view God might save us form suffering. But this is not a given. Look what happened to his son. Many expressions of Christianity are predicated on the virtue found in suffering and poverty. The suffering - if it ends - happens through salvation after death. Suffering affords Christians the chance to be better people, to test their faith and to provide charity and it is a part of God's ineffable plan.

But your broader point, which is commonly stated by skeptics is this - why does an all good, all knowing, all loving God allow innocent people (especially children) to suffer and die in their millions?

This might demonstrate some contractions (but not disprove) in a literalist, fundamentalist version of the Christian god. But that's not a difficult thing.

You are one of the most moderate atheists here on the forum. You don't share the rabid obsession of some. But your lack of imagination limits your understanding. — T Clark

Thanks TC. But I meant what I said and I think the point is a moderate one. :smile: My imagination is working fine. Maybe I put it badly. Let me try again. If God is an explanation for creation/reality then this explanation is just another mystery. Even those who experience God (through, say, the Apophatic tradition) would agree that God is beyond ordinary perception and human experience.

I don't think an experience of a god - even if I grant that the experience is genuine - counts as an explanation of anything God is said to have done or wants from humans. The experience explains the experience and may well count as proof of God by the believer, but it does not provide an elucidation of anything further.

This is a human language problem, not a theological one. Language paradoxes don't limit God's abilities. — T Clark

I was going to make precisely the same point.

I cannot think of a way for the theist to solve this problem. — Raymond Rider

The bigger problem for the theist is that they have no way of explaining how or why a god created anything or what a god even is. So in essence, before we get bogged down into meta-questions, it's worth recognizing that theism generally employs a mystery to explain a mystery. Gods have no explanatory power.

Basically, I think people should focus on work.
— baker

"Work sets you free".

And she says I'm right wing. — Banno

Cheap shot, but that made me laugh. A lot.

Over my life I have known many transgender people - young and old. Some very brave folk who were out there thirty years ago and really took risks to become the person they are now. No one I have met is transgender for laughs or as a stunt. People's biology doesn't need to limit their gender expression and changing sex may be an efficacious pathway to good mental health and full participation in community life. I can't pretend to understand this phenomenon experientially but I can support people and wish them the best. There are few things less noble than resenting or undermining people for who they are.