The Meaning of the Number System ("quantity" is incorrect)

[Iwannaplato]

Just a quick note. I added something that might be helpful to the end of my previous post. Please check that out.
I gotta go now, but I'll come back later and respond to your latest post then.

[Skepdick]

Just a quick note. I added something that might be helpful to the end of my previous post. Please check that out.
I gotta go now, but I'll come back later and respond to your latest post then.

But this could be included in the beginning. You could explain why it would be useful to view things like X on occasion and how this can have benefits or is also true and that you are not positing the final and only language that should be used.

There is no "final and only language".

That phrase sends shivers down my spine. Language cannot be controlled at social scale. It's a living/evolving thing. To be able to enforce some sort of "final and only language" would require a great deal of intolerance on behalf of the language enforcers/normalizers.

It can only be controlled amongst small groups of people with a shared goal - that's not only useful, but necessary for consensus. It's how jargon emerges. But evolve two subcultures separately and observe their languages drift.

[Iwannaplato]

Just a quick note. I added something that might be helpful to the end of my previous post. Please check that out.
I gotta go now, but I'll come back later and respond to your latest post then.

But this could be included in the beginning. You could explain why it would be useful to view things like X on occasion and how this can have benefits or is also true and that you are not positing the final and only language that should be used.

There is no "final and only language".

That phrase sends shivers down my spine. Language cannot be controlled at social scale. It's a living/evolving thing. To be able to enforce some sort of "final and only language" would require a great deal of intolerance on behalf of the language enforcers/normalizers.

It can only be controlled amongst small groups of people with a shared goal - that's not only useful, but necessary for consensus. It's how jargon emerges. But evolve two subcultures separately and observe their languages drift.

Right. I hope it was clear that I was saying you would NOT be asserting a final and only language and any concerns about someone thinking your were could be prevented explicitly.

[Iwannaplato]

Then show me a more charitable view - as I am showing you a more charitable view of Rorydop's words!

I'm not Skepdick. In context I didn't have a problem with it. I am not sure I place charitable as highly on my priorities as you expect one should. Though I must say I am not sure you do either.

In using the word "problem" and the phrase "problem with his enterprise/behaviour" most people would take you to be implying that his behaviour needs to be rectified/altered/corrected.

That's too objective. I don't like it. I have a problem with it. I owned it. I don't want the little VAs of the world to take over (any more than they already have).

From there, sure, if you think I don't understand what he's doing/saying enlighten me, but my reactions have generally been that you are not saying what the people whose ideas you are defending are saying. I find myself dealing with your positions which do not seem the same and often I find just fine.

I suppose I could frame that as you are being too charitable, you're seeing better positions where they aren't. Not better arguments, but different positions and better arguments. Which is much of the reason why I encourage you to start threads. Then, at least, we'd be interacting without a third clumsy dance partner in between us.

I also think you're an interesting thinker. I'd rather deal directly with your thoughts, rather than trying to deal with them as translations or explanations of other people. It's like watching TV with the radio on.

The way to help him is to make him quit. His project is a waste of time. The practice of ethics/morality beats the theory of ethics/morality hands down.

LOL - I mean, why should I be more charitable to VA then? Of course he has me on ignore - which I find fascinating since his life would be so much more pleasant if he put PH on ignore and read mine. He's said exactly the same thing 100s of times. Sort of like Iambiguous.

Philosophy runs out of usefulness after a while. Being inconsistent becomes paramount to being effective in the real world.

I don't see anyone getting by without a complicated mixed set of worldviews and positions on things.

This is a pretty wild claim. The fact is that he's not wrong, and there's a gillmer of being right in there. So the people who need to learn humility is the Mathematicians, not the outsider.

They both do. My goal has not been to help Roydop through making him more humble. But as part of my defense of my actions I cannot see what problem I create for him. And if you think mathematicians need to listen to RD, getting Roydop to be more humble in some respects can only help him. When he interprets every reaction to him in ways that mean he has nothing to learn and other people are stupid, this will not help change mathematicians minds. And when I say humble I don't mean he has to kiss ass or pretend he's not certain about his find. He could start to notice problems in his approach and some of his assertions and his interpersonal skills. He could consider that there is something to learn, even for his enlightened ass.

I don't know if Rorydop has anything to add here, but society as a whole has caught onto the idea that cooperation and networking at scale is largely benefficial. Division of labour, sharing, interacting, communities etc. so if Mathematics is useful to society then it needs to be industrialised! It needs to be made more accessible. It needs to be democratized.

And that's necessarily going to lead to commercialisation - precisely the sort of stuff Rorydop despisese. The usual hatred towards capitalistic popularisation of ideas scaled to benefit greater parts of society.

Rorydop is gonna hate it! But it's gonna happen.

I didn't get this. It seems like you think it would be good if mathematicians realized the core insight Roydop has here. Why would that be good? What changes would it lead to that you see as positive? You may have explained this above, but I can't understand it if you did.

[commonsense]

The correct notation for adding temperature averages
is NOT 1 + 1 = 1, rather it is (1 + 1)/2 = 1.

[Skepdick]

Then show me a more charitable view - as I am showing you a more charitable view of Rorydop's words!

I'm not Skepdick.

I don't understand this in context. You are not what?

In context I didn't have a problem with it. I am not sure I place charitable as highly on my priorities as you expect one should. Though I must say I am not sure you do either.

In rhetoric I place charity as the highest priority. Right after that I place the strategy-stealing strategy - if somebody is not interested in a charitable discourse, then I have no issue abandoning my own prioritiess. It's just game theory - prisoners's dilemma. I only stand to lose more if I remain charitable to an uncharitable interlocutor.

So I am charitable once, charitable twice - then I punish. Vehemently.

In using the word "problem" and the phrase "problem with his enterprise/behaviour" most people would take you to be implying that his behaviour needs to be rectified/altered/corrected.

That's too objective. I don't like it. I have a problem with it. I owned it. I don't want the little VAs of the world to take over (any more than they already have).

OK, you have a problem with it - I hear you. But what does that imply in practice? Whichever way you put it - a problem doesn't get resolved without something changing. Who should change? Rorydop, or you?

From there, sure, if you think I don't understand what he's doing/saying enlighten me, but my reactions have generally been that you are not saying what the people whose ideas you are defending are saying. I find myself dealing with your positions which do not seem the same and often I find just fine.

You seem to pay far too much attention on what is being said; and far too little attention on what the words imply.
Two different people saying two different things effectively agree if their different words have the same implication.

This is especially true if the words carry no implication whatsoever. e.g descriptive statements.

You can describe reality however you like - I don't really mind.
As far as I am concerned there are no privileged descriptions.

I suppose I could frame that as you are being too charitable, you're seeing better positions where they aren't.

There's no such thing as "too charitable" in a game where we are desperatelly want to avoid miscommunication.
Unless misscommunication is the end-goal (which I am getting the impression that it might be with philosophy and philosophers).

The whole dance is about manufacturing disagreement even when none exists. It undermines the whole ordeal.

Not better arguments, but different positions and better arguments. Which is much of the reason why I encourage you to start threads. Then, at least, we'd be interacting without a third clumsy dance partner in between us.

I don't find this valuable at all. Threads begin their life as context-free creatures. So there needs to be a thread to contextualise the thread. Ad infinitum.

Mostly - I never speak first. I have almost nothing that needs saying out of the blue.

I also think you're an interesting thinker. I'd rather deal directly with your thoughts, rather than trying to deal with them as translations or explanations of other people. It's like watching TV with the radio on.

That's almost insulting. I apply thinking to problem-solving. One of the problems I am good at applying my thinking to is distributed consensus. I integrate systems and so I am far better as a mediator than an interlocutor.

In short: most people agree in actions and in implications. They disagree in words and in justifications, but they blow it out of proportion and significance.

As an example: look at the objective morality thread. There's no person on that thread who thinks (or even attempt to defend the position) that going to your neighbor's house to get some sugar and stabbing them in the face (e.g murdering them) is morally acceptable.The "disagreement" (almost 500 pages of it) is about something else entirely.

The disagreement is about justifications - words. But words don't matter. Actions do.

LOL - I mean, why should I be more charitable to VA then?

Because he still acts morally, even though his moral justifications are dumb. I mean - all moral justifications are dumb, but he refuses to accept that so he tries to pretend that his ones are less dumb than the rest.

Of course he has me on ignore - which I find fascinating since his life would be so much more pleasant if he put PH on ignore and read mine. He's said exactly the same thing 100s of times. Sort of like Iambiguous.

I am going to quote Rorty because I have no original thoughts on this.

All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person’s final vocabulary. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them is only helpless passivity or a resort to force.

VA thinks that he will find the magic sequence of words which somehow gets everyone to land on the same page with respect to our moral justification vocabularies. He doesn't (want to) get that a moral theory is not moral practice.

Philosophy runs out of usefulness after a while. Being inconsistent becomes paramount to being effective in the real world.

I don't see anyone getting by without a complicated mixed set of worldviews and positions on things.

yeah. because "inconsistency" is just the process of change itself. A becoming not-A. not-A becoming A.

This is a pretty wild claim. The fact is that he's not wrong, and there's a gillmer of being right in there. So the people who need to learn humility is the Mathematicians, not the outsider.

They both do.

In relative/proportionate terms the "experts" in the formal sciences are the ones who need far more humbling. Their ivory tower is built on the sand of arbitrary axioms. Eventually newer, better axioms (better sand) comes around.

My goal has not been to help Roydop through making him more humble. But as part of my defense of my actions I cannot see what problem I create for him.

I don't think you can achieve your mission without charity and understanding. You could easily become "just another one of those dismissive experts".

I mean you do have a problem with him...

And if you think mathematicians need to listen to RD, getting Roydop to be more humble in some respects can only help him.

I am not saying that at all. I think the road from where he is now to him communicating his message in a way that his intended audience would listen is.... impossibly long.

When he interprets every reaction to him in ways that mean he has nothing to learn and other people are stupid, this will not help change mathematicians minds.

Yeah.... he can't even change his own mind yet. Never mind the minds of millions.

And when I say humble I don't mean he has to kiss ass or pretend he's not certain about his find. He could start to notice problems in his approach and some of his assertions and his interpersonal skills. He could consider that there is something to learn, even for his enlightened ass.

Most people start that journey in their 20s. When they are 100% sure they are geniuses and the world is full of idiots. He won't get the patience and leeway of a 20-something silly kid figuring life out.

He'll simply get more bitter because of the ongoing rejection.

I didn't get this. It seems like you think it would be good if mathematicians realized the core insight Roydop has here.

His "core insight" (to me) is that Mathematics contains no answers. It's true, but it's useless because it's neither here nor there. Most Mathematicians don't pursue Mathematics because they are searching for some deep truth. They used to do that but Godel shattered Hilbert's dream 100 years ago.

Much of the changes in Mathematics over the last 100 years (to me anyway) is to shift away from thinking that the discipline is less about discovery and more about invention. Which is where computer science comes in.

The value of Mathematics is not in its answers - it's in its abstractness, rigid structure and rigour. And then it's just a game of systems design. It's about designing the right kind of setting/context (topology) in which certain properties hold while others don't.

Such as designing a system in which the property of 1+1=1 is true; or designing a system in which the property 1+1=2 is true.

To be sure - those two systems are incompatible so their respective computations still need to be contextualised by a human.

[Skepdick]

The correct notation for adding temperature averages
is NOT 1 + 1 = 1, rather it is (1 + 1)/2 = 1.

No, it's not. Arguing for the "correctness" of a notation is just a subjective preference. A moral claim.

In my view the "correct notation" would indicate which "+" operator you are referring to.
There's a "+ for scalars.
There's a "+" for integers.
THere's a "+" for real numbers.
There's a "+' for rational numbers.
There's a "+" for vectors.
There's a "+" for matrices.

There's many different pluses in Mathematics. Which + are you using?

Just like a computer can infer which "+" I mean once given the units of whatever is being added, so a human should be able to infer that

1+1=11 (for characters/strings)
1+1=2 (for cardinals)
1+1=1 (for temperatures)

[Iwannaplato]

I don't understand this in context. You are not what?

It seems you want me to be charitable. I was using a kind of thought experiment involving a clone of you. How might another you react to the way you were posting to VA? If you think another you would not suggest that you should have been more charitable with him, the thought experiment is over. It failed to elicit something I was wondering if it would. Me, I don't react to you in that interaction as needing to be more charitable. There did seem to be a lot of insults, but I don't know the wider context of your interaction with him. He's happy to go ad hom and insulting for mere disagreement. I think I've even seen him react this way to posts that were trying to clarify and explore. I sure he feels at siege, so I have some vague sympathy for his feeling, but man he couldn't have called for a siege around his castle more effectively if he'd planned consciously.

In rhetoric I place charity as the highest rhetoric. Right after that I place the strategy-stealing strategy - if somebody is not interested in a charitable discourse, then I have no issue abandoning my own prioritiess. It's just game theory - prisoners's dilemma. I only stand to lose more if I remain charitable to an uncharitable interlocutor.

Ok, I guess I have something similar but more with expression of anger. IOW I may peck at someone's ideas and not focus on making sure I am being charitable - considering the best possible interpretation of those ideas.

So I am charitable once, charitable twice - then I punish. Vehemently.

Including when they do not insult or otherwise get aggressive? IOW they perhaps continue cluelessly but without say getting personal, ad hommy, insulting...you still punish vehemently? And by punishment, does this mean you take out your analytical claws or does punishing mean you get insulting (or both)?

OK, you have a problem with it - I hear you. But what does that imply in practice? Whichever way you put it - a problem doesn't get resolved without something changing. Who should change? Rorydop, or you?

I'd like him to change. And, yeah, a lot of problems don't get resolved. My issues with Roydop is minor compared to many of these. Even my issues with much more high functioning people who have similar spiritual beliefs to his are minor.

There's a secondary process here also. And in some ways it is the main one. Roydop and VA, as examples, represent attitudes and memes that float around in the world in a variety of contexts and individuals. Sometimes I encounter these in person, not online.

Sometimes these memes and even attitudes have vestiges inside me. So, when I interact with them here, I find I can learn how to minimize the effects I don't like, at least on me, sometimes in organizations or groups and certainly in my own head.

It's like training. There problems can go away. Now, I also have preferences for less local shifts around these things, but I do what I can.

From there, sure, if you think I don't understand what he's doing/saying enlighten me, but my reactions have generally been that you are not saying what the people whose ideas you are defending are saying. I find myself dealing with your positions which do not seem the same and often I find just fine.

You seem to pay far too much attention on what is being said; and far too little attention on what the words imply.
Two different people saying two different things effectively agree if their different words have the same implication.
Words without implication are not worth listening to.

I disagree with your assessment of me in the first sentence. But I agree with the next two sentences and can't see how those connect with what I said, if they are meant to.

There's no such thing as "too charitable" in a game where we are desperatelly want to avoid miscommunication.

If you are telling me I am wrong for disagreeing with X and you show me how and what you show me is not what the person is saying, I think that's too charitable - if the point you make is well made. If it is as poor an idea and argument then it's not too charitable, but still skewed.

The whole dance is about manufacturing disagreement even when none exists. It undermines the whole ordeal.

I do have that experience with you, as far as I can tell, sometimes.

I don't find this valuable at all. Threads begin their life as context-free creatures. So there needs to be a thread to contextualise the thread. Ad infinitum.

I have a similar reticence, though perhaps not quite for the same reason. Do you ever challenge people for starting threads?

Mostly - I never speak first. I have almost nothing that needs saying out of the blue.

It seems you have opinions in general about mathematicians and philosophers and philosophy and here, starting threads. Why couldn't those be thread beginnings? The context is a philosophy forum but also a world where you deal with these people. Or?

In any case, you don't seem interested in doing that

I also think you're an interesting thinker. I'd rather deal directly with your thoughts, rather than trying to deal with them as translations or explanations of other people. It's like watching TV with the radio on.

That's almost insulting. I apply thinking to problem-solving. One of the problems I am good at applying my thinking to is distributed consensus. I integrate systems and so I am far better as a mediator than an interlocutor.

Is it your sense that it's going well here with your effectiveness at distributing consensus?

In short: most people agree in actions and in implications. They disagree in words and in justifications, but they blow it out of proportion and significance.

That's not my experience in life. I am not sure why it would be different here.

As an example: look at the objective morality thread. There's no person on that thread who thinks (or even attempt to defend the position) that going to your neighbor's house to get some sugar and stabbing them in the face (e.g murdering them) is morally acceptable.The "disagreement" (almost 500 pages of it) is about something else entirely.

I have tried myself to distribute consensus. It's not a main priority for me here, but I have approached people on both sides of that issue and tried to minimize gaps. But there's a place you could start a thread suggesting it is used to focus on commonalities. The context is the forum and the long standing focus on differences at an abstract level. You are reaction to the dynamic, but not critiquing critiques.

The main thing that I find amazing is how much repetition they engage in. I don't know how they maintain interest.

The disagreement is about justifications - words. But words don't matter. Actions do.

I don't see these as separate. I think words and justifications can lead to actions. But, I also have this reaction. I have been trying to get a clear answer from some people in the compatiblism thread to tell me why the issue is important to the world, to society, to them as individuals. If it's a curiosity an interest driving it, well, carry on. But for some it seems like it makes a huge difference. It wouldn't to me as far as I can tell, if it became clear somehow that one idea was simply false and the other true.

LOL - I mean, why should I be more charitable to VA then?

Because he still acts morally, even though his moral justifications are dumb. I mean - all moral justifications are dumb, but he refuses to accept that so he tries to pretend that his ones are less dumb than the rest.

Well, I don't like how he acts, nor do I like his plans.

All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person’s final vocabulary. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them is only helpless passivity or a resort to force.

Seems like a good idea to have more than one set and to allow for development in those words (and actions also. at least I have lots to improve and habits I'd prefer to break)

VA thinks that he will find the magic sequence of words which somehow gets everyone to land on the same page with respect to our moral justification vocabularies. He doesn't (want to) get that a moral theory is not moral practice.

Sure, he wants theory to have an impact and later on down the road to implement technological and pedagogical methods to make humans as he wants them. He's certainly not alone in all that.

In relative/proportionate terms the "experts" in the formal sciences are the ones who need far more humbling.

More humbling, fine. But Roydop, I think could use a dose of it. .

I don't think you can achieve your mission without charity and understanding. You could easily become "just another one of those dismissive experts".

It has likely happened that I have aligned with dismissive experts. I'm a jack of many trades and expert of none that have got an ivory tower out there. I am not weilding ivory tower power here. There is none here. So, when I align, intentionally or not, with dismissive experts, the Roydops and VAs of the world can hone their presentations in relation to ivory towers. A side effect might be that they take a more global look at themselves and their projects. That's rare, but it's happened.

I mean you do have a problem with him...

Sure, but my mission is complex. My optimism about changing him is tiny. My optimism about understanding how not to be troubled by the presence of people with similar beliefs and memes (including memes related to justification) is large. And I have practical use for that and also well-being use for that.

And if you think mathematicians need to listen to RD, getting Roydop to be more humble in some respects can only help him.

I am not saying that at all. I think the road from where he is now to him communicating his message in a way that his intended audience would listen is.... impossibly long.

I suppose. Dattaswami has a very large number of followers. His personality and failings are at least as large as Roydop's. However he had a lineage. Sort of like rich parents, but for spirituality. He got to take over daddy's conglomerate, metaphorically daddy, literally conglomerate.

I think Roydop could catch on if he simplified his message. Some of his videos are hysterically ornate creations where people would probably go for a simple approach. He is much more creative than some of his peers and I don't think it's helping.

I didn't get this. It seems like you think it would be good if mathematicians realized the core insight Roydop has here.

His "core insight" (to me) is that Mathematics contains no answers. It's true, but it's useless because it's neither here nor there. Most Mathematicians don't pursue Mathematics because they are searching for some deep truth. They used to do that but Godel shattered Hilbert's dream 100 years ago.

Much of the changes in Mathematics over the last 100 years (to me anyway) is to shift away from thinking that the discipline is less about discovery and more about invention. Which is where computer science comes in.

The value of Mathematics is not in its answers - it's in its abstractness, rigid structure and rigour. And then it's just a game of systems design. It's about designing the right kind of setting/context (topology) in which certain properties hold while others don't.

Such as designing a system in which the property of 1+1=1 is true; or designing a system in which the property 1+1=2 is true.

To be sure - those two systems are incompatible so their respective computations still need to be contextualised by a human.

So, I'm not sure what I should be more charitable about in relation to his posts. He has a useless insight, according to you. My main reaction was that he was misattributing the cause of our use of math. Most of us that us´l well all of us from the beginning. Nobody starts using addition only after reading Russell and Whitehead. I sure didn't start using math because of the Principia. I would literally have to be held at gunpoint to read that and then, people were doing math before that tome. I presented him with a kind of pragmatic, math is working fine for me. I have no reason, certainly none he presented, for stopping my use of addition and considering numbers are about quantity. NOTE: I am not saying that one should not look into numbers, present other ways to use them, show problems that are created by how numbers are viewed. That other things can happen. But he seems to want blanket condemnation and further to say that numbers are a message, period, about a spiritual problem we have.

Perhaps they are that also. Or perhaps one can use numbers to highlight a spirtual problem.

But I'll still use addition in the ways I do.

One issue I have is with his 'X is only Y' attitude. It's pretty simple to acknowledge that he doesn't mean this, if he doesn't. But since his goals are absolute - complete thought free awareness, total enlightenment, any suffering is a failure, anything that can be misused or misgeneralized is bad, this is off the table.

If I was charitable, I suppose I'd just need to ignore him. However since I encounter both the thinking style and some of his batch of New Agey neo-hindbuddhism out here in real life, often in pieces - like the whole mindfulness fad recently, but then in much subtler forms - it's good training for me to interact. And in some way, here, in a philosophy forum, I can practice a very overt challenging. If my boss is pushing similar things or has a similar presentation style, it can be problematic to just go in claws out openly.

Since I am someone who people come to in real life when they are troubled (often including troubled by other people and the attendant mindfucks) some of what I learn here can also be helpful for them.

I certainly use a charitable at least seeming approach in some cases, when encountering memes and attitudes I dislike. That's tactically good in situations where people can hurt me or people I care about. And I am charitable in relation to individuals approaching me in most situations in real life. Here however, I think it is part of the culture, and a part I think you dislike though you participate in it in response to responses, to have ideas challenged.

I do hope that I will feel less and less interest/need to train in this way. (I am also curious. And often when I least expect it an answer comes back that interests me even more. The training aspect is not my only motive, but it's a big one).

[Skepdick]

It seems you want me to be charitable. I was using a kind of thought experiment involved a clone of you. How might another you react to the way you were posting to VA? If you think another you would not suggest that your should have been more charitable with him

I was. Years ago. He didn't reciprocate it so he no longer enjoys the privilege. Now I am just mirroring him.

Ok, I guess I have something similar but more with expression of anger. IOW I may peck at someone's ideas and not focus on making sure I am being charitable - considering the best possible interpretation of those ideas.

You can do that. It innevitably leads to mud wrestling. If that's what you want to do - sure.

Including when they do not insult or otherwise get aggressive? IOW they perhaps continue cluelessly but without say getting personal, ad hommy, insulting...you still punish vehemently? And by punishment, does this mean you take out your analytical claws or does punishing mean you get insulting (or both)?

It means I steal their rhetorical/philosophical strategy and amplify it to its inductive/logical conclusion.

The insults start only when they double-down on playing the silly philosophical game.

I'd like him to change.

I figured as much. And that's all I meant when I said you think he is "wrong" - you want to change/fix/correct him.

But you haven't even charitably understood him.

And, yeah, a lot of problems don't get resolved. My issues with Roydop is minor compared to many of these. Even my issues with much more high functioning people who have similar spiritual beliefs to his are minor.

Yeah, I don't see much value in the game of "correcting abstract beliefs". Not unless those beliefs are tied up to concrete harmful actions.

There's a secondary process here also. And in some ways it is the main one. Roydop and VA, as examples, represent attitudes and memes that float around in the world in a variety of contexts and individuals. Sometimes I encounter these in person, not online.

My charitable view on this in general is that Philosophy allows room for role-playing. So to assume the person is actually committed to that actual view (rather than actually putting on a party hat) may be too uncharitable.

But I hear you with respect to VA and Rorydop. I don't get the feeling/intuition that they can laugh at their own ideas just yet. They take themselves way too seriously. I can empathise - was there once upon a long time ago.

Sometimes these memes and even attitudes have vestiges inside me. So, when I interact with them here, I find I can learn how to minimize the effects I don't like, at least on me, sometimes in organizations or groups and certainly in my own head.

Ah, but it is far better to understand that behind every stupid idea they still mean well. So it's not wise to extinguish that fire within yourself completely.

Just channel it better.

It's like training. There problems can go away. Now, I also have preferences for less local shifts around these things, but I do what I can.

Aye. That's what I find Philosophy good for. Boot camp for the real world in a setting without consequences.

The absence of consequences may be a good or a bad thing though.

I disagree with your assessment of me in the first sentence. But I agree with the next two sentences and can't see how those connect with what I said, if they are meant to.

I guess I don't understand what you think Rorydop implies with his words. We already know what he says.

If you are telling me I am wrong for disagreeing with X and you show me how and what you show me is not what the person is saying, I think that's too charitable - if the point you make is well made. If it is as poor an idea and argument then it's not too charitable, but still skewed.

So let it be too charitable. It still moves the discussion away from mud wrestling and towards recalibrating excessive charity.

I do have that experience with you, as far as I can tell, sometimes.

Well, duuh! It's a philosophy forum

I have a similar reticence, though perhaps not quite for the same reason. Do you ever challenge people for starting threads? \

Sure. Especially when I suspect that we agree in implications but disagree in words. I use disagreement to convince myself that we actually agree in practice.

Mostly - I never speak first. I have almost nothing that needs saying out of the blue.

It seems you have opinions in general about mathematicians and philosophers and philosophy and here, starting threads. Why couldn't those be thread beginnings? The context is a philosophy forum but also a world where you deal with these people. Or?

Yeah. I came to philosophy late in life. After a few decades in software engineering. And the tension between applied and theoretical knowledge (be it mathematics, philosophy, science) etc. is puzzling to me to this day.

In any case, you don't seem interested in doing that

Yeah. Because it's always too devoid of pragmatic context!

The way I see it - theory is what masters at their craft should synthesize at the END of their careed. So they can pass on the knowledge to the next generation. Most of the people producing theories have spent zero time outside of the theoretical realm!

e.g they have no idea how to operate in a pragmatic reality.

Is it your sense that it's going well here with your effectiveness at distributing consensus?

In so far as the interlocutor's primary goal is disagreement? No. Conseuss seems to go against the very spirit of philosophy. If I succeed - Philosophy ends.

But it's quite obvious when Philosophers get caught with their pants down (having tacitly agreed) and start muddying the water in linguistic verbiage.

That's not my experience in life. I am not sure why it would be different here.

Because philosophy (the way it's practices mostly) is about language and mind games. Concensus in words doesn't matter to people who have conseusus in action.

Most people don't need convincing that murder is wrong. Philosophy is about WHY is murder wrong? Every WHY is just a theory. Every WHY is of equal worth. It's just a rationalization of the conclusion.

I have tried myself to distribute consensus. It's not a main priority for me here, but I have approached people on both sides of that issue and tried to minimize gaps.

I don't think that's the point of philosophy though? If both interlocutors assume charity then the point of argument is to construct the steelman argument for both sides.

So that spectators (such as yourself) could compare the strongest possible arguments for both sides; and then decide for themselves which one aligns with their view better.

It may well be that one side is playing devil's advocate, but without somebody playing the role - there's no choice for the spectator.

But there's a place you could start a thread suggesting it is used to focus on commonalities.

On this forum? Your "commonalities" will be "proven wrong" in 10 minutes.

The disagreement is about justifications - words. But words don't matter. Actions do.

I don't see these as separate. I think words and justifications can lead to actions. But, I also have this reaction. I have been trying to get a clear answer from some people in the compatiblism thread to tell me why the issue is important to the world, to society, to them as individuals. If it's a curiosity an interest driving it, well, carry on. But for some it seems like it makes a huge difference. It wouldn't to me as far as I can tell, if it became clear somehow that one idea was simply false and the other true.

Yeah... this is an issue with people who think axiomatically. Starting with premises and leading to conclusions. It leads to stupid actions.

That's no way to consider alternative strategies and to figure out which one arrives at an optimal result given your morally desired outcome.

It's all a game of consequentialism in a way.

Well, I don't like how he acts, nor do I like his plans.

He could never execute his plans. He has zero technical know-how. VA is greater threat to your time than he is a threat to the sancity of your brain.

Seems like a good idea to have more than one set and to allow for development in those words (and actions also. at least I have lots to improve and habits I'd prefer to break)

Sure. That naturally follows the moment you see that a better outcome becomes possible if different choices were being made made. But... you already know that. It's a useless tautology.

The challenge isn't even self-improvement habbits. It's about keeping your behaviour/choices on-track with ALL of your goals. If you spend all of your time perfecting yourself you'll lose out on living

Sure, he wants theory to have an impact and later on down the road to implement technological and pedagogical methods to make humans as he wants them. He's certainly not alone in all that.

Well, you want to make Rorydop as you want him so.. VA isn't alone.

In relative/proportionate terms the "experts" in the formal sciences are the ones who need far more humbling.

More humbling, fine. But Roydop, I think could use a dose of it. .

All of us could The most humble are those who successfully surrender to a greater power. But they seem to have a bad name in recent years.

So, when I align, intentionally or not, with dismissive experts, the Roydops and VAs of the world can hone their presentations in relation to ivory towers. A side effect might be that they take a more global look at themselves and their projects. That's rare, but it's happened.

So you don't align with the experts who might agree with Rorydop and VA's implications and goals, but would never say such things (and definitely not in those particular words) for all sorts of smart reasons

Neuralink is making the brain-computer interface a reality.
The video I posted earlier advocates for human-computer cooperation in Mathematics.

In so far as there are pro and anti camps on technology I merely see technology as part of humanity. It's part of our self-improvement and self-evolution project.

Look at all those people who were against tracking/privacy invasion - now everyone has a tracker in their pocket that knows everything about their lives.

I mean you do have a problem with him...

Sure, but my mission is complex. My optimism about changing him is tiny. My optimism about understanding how not to be troubled by the presence of people with similar beliefs and memes (including memes related to justification) is large. And I have practical use for that and also well-being use for that.

Hah! Be charitable to their view and then ignore them

There's bigger fish to fry.

I suppose. Dattaswami has a very large number of followers. His personality and failings are at least as large as Roydop's. However he had a lineage. Sort of like rich parents, but for spirituality. He got to take over daddy's conglomerate, metaphorically daddy, literally conglomerate.

I spent some time in India and in Ashrams in my youth. For all the swindling and nonsense they peddle it seemed like a useful enterprise to get Westnerners to finance Indian economic and social development programmes by being sold spirituality. It's a win-win.

Westerners get enlightenment and peace of mind - Indians get hospitals/schools. Of course not all gurus was into their philantropy.

I think Roydop could catch on if he simplified his message. Some of his videos are hysterically ornate creations where people would probably go for a simple approach. He is much more creative than some of his peers and I don't think it's helping.

Yeah... if you want to learn how an outsider can influence an institution take some lessons from Einstein.

He spent the time to learn the lingo so he doesn't seem like a crazy outsider.

So, I'm not sure what I should be more charitable about in relation to his posts. He has a useless insight, according to you.

No, his insights are absolutely true. In some rudimentary manner. In so far as he might tell you that Mathematics offers no answers to Philosophical pursuits - it's useful to know how and where not to invest your time!

Don't place blind faith in Mathematics! It's a human invention, not a human discovery.

My main reaction was that he was misattributing the cause of our use of math. Most of us that us. I sure didn't start using math because of the Principia. I would literally have to be held at gunpoint to read that and then, people were doing math before that tome. I presented him with a kind of pragmatic, math is working fine for me. I have no reason, certainly none he presented, for stopping my use of addition and considering numbers are about quantity.

You are refering to primitive arithmetic - the sort of stuff we all use day to day. Mathematics is muuuch bigger than that.

Thousands, or millions of publications even more complex than the Principia. Going deeper and deeper on weirder and more weirder abstract construction

One issue I have is with his 'X is only Y' attitude. It's pretty simple to acknowledge that he doesn't mean this, if he doesn't. But since his goals are absolute - complete thought free awareness, total enlightenment, any suffering is a failure, anything that can be misused or misgeneralized is bad, this is off the table.

If I was charitable, I suppose I'd just need to ignore him. However since I encounter both the thinking style and some of his batch of New Agey neo-hindbuddhism out here in real life, often in pieces - like the whole mindfulness fad recently, but then in much subtler forms - it's good training for me to interact. And in some way, here, in a philosophy forum, I can practice a very overt challenging. If my boss is pushing similar things or has a similar presentation style, it can be problematic to just go in claws out openly.

Since I am someone who people come to in real life when they are troubled (often including troubled by other people and the attendant mindfucks) some of what I learn here can also be helpful for them.

I certainly use a charitable at least seeming approach in some cases, when encountering memes and attitudes I dislike. That's tactically good in situations where people can hurt me or people I care about. And I am charitable in relation to individuals approaching me in most situations in real life. Here however, I think it is part of the culture, and a part I think you dislike though you participate in it in response to responses, to have ideas challenged.

I do hope that I will feel less and less interest/need to train in this way. (I am also curious. And often when I least expect it an answer comes back that interests me even more. The training aspect is not my only motive).

See, the thing with Philosophical training is that it's incredibly formal and way too strict/rigit. Humans don't interact this way! Only academics interact this way!

So i think it's a mistake to assume this "training" translates into real life.

Most people don't enjoy the game of challenging ideas - they don't have your "training"

[Iwannaplato]

You can do that. It innevitably leads to mud wrestling. If that's what you want to do - sure.

I'm not sure about that. Roydop's last response to me was both civil and on point. I'm not deliberately being uncharitable. I try to respond to what people are saying or how they are justifying. And I will deescalate and try again.

I figured as much. And that's all I meant when I said you think he is "wrong" - you want to change/fix/correct him.

But you haven't even charitably understood him.

I disagree.

Yeah, I don't see much value in the game of "correcting abstract beliefs". Not unless those beliefs are tied up to concrete harmful actions.

I think most stuff is connected, actually.

Ah, but it is far better to understand that behind every stupid idea they still mean well. So it's not wise to extinguish that fire within yourself completely.

I don't think that's true, but then again, it doesn't matter for dealing with them. Anything that makes it go better for me or those I care about, I'll add. Also, I think there's a kind of now I truly sussed about the bs here and it no longer stings type of result.

Aye. That's what I find Philosophy good for. Boot camp for the real world in a setting without consequences.

The absence of consequences may be a good or a bad thing though.

Sure, especially if you think you've solved the real world situation or if you just want to be cruel.

So let it be too charitable. It still moves the discussion away from mud wrestling and towards recalibrating excessive charity.

It doesn't move the discussion in that direction because it simply seems like a new discussion.

Sure. Especially when I suspect that we agree in implications but disagree in words. I use disagreement to convince myself that we actually agree in practice.

I am sometimes taken as aggressive when I am simply triangulating. I am trying to get at what is being said. There can be incredulity involved, but that isn't a lack of charity. If it seems like someone's saying X, I am going to ask if they really are saying X. I don't think it's my job to hallucinate other positions than the one there words are presenting. Of course, I could be in error, but that should turn up quickly.

Yeah. I came to philosophy late in life. After a few decades in software engineering. And the tension between applied and theoretical knowledge (be it mathematics, philosophy, science) etc. is puzzling to me to this day.

I've only had scattered contact with philosophy so I can't even generalize like that. I do find people offended by anything other than the correspondance theory seems to be guiding me. I think they tend to run with something like what Redday calls the conduit metaphor for language and the correspondance theory. If my sort of pragmatism comes to the fore it can be considered almost obscene. This can be anything from a defense of Pascal's Wager - which was not aimed at atheists which most people in forums seem to think but at theists suggesting there is no good reason not to continue believing in God - to talking about any belief that seems to be working for someone to backing up intuition as an ok reason to belief or act as if. Or admitting that there I use intution...all this is treated like idiocy. I find this surprising. I mean, with the correspondance theory, like, it's ackknoweldged as one of the theories of truth in philosophy. With long standing adherents and critics, but if you hit philosophy forums online, then it is THE way of looking at truth or what one works with. There's also this odd science groupie thing. Like science has resolved all this stuff and generally if you disagree with what they think (and are often incorrect about) science has confirmed, then you are just wrong. And if you think anything not yet confirmed by science should be considered you are like a crusader killing infidels and shouting God's name.

It's like entering a bar fight and inadvertantly choosing one side of what MUST (for some reason) be one of two sides, with us or against us.

Yeah. Because it's always too devoid of pragmatic context!

The way I see it - theory is what masters at their craft should synthesize at the END of their careed. So they can pass on the knowledge to the next generation. Most of the people producing theories have spent zero time outside of the theoretical realm!

Oh, I like that. Nice.

In so far as the interlocutor's primary goal is disagreement? No. Conseuss seems to go against the very spirit of philosophy. If I succeed - Philosophy ends.

There are better forums for that. The Philosophy Forum is more collegial, probably others.

Because philosophy (the way it's practices mostly) is about language and mind games. Concensus in words doesn't matter to people who have conseusus in action.

Ah, yes, ok. All we have is words here. Yes.

On this forum? Your "commonalities" will be "proven wrong" in 10 minutes.

No, it wouldn't be you demonstrating or claiming commonalities, it would be requesting people find them, around a specific topic.

It's all a game of consequentialism in a way.

Yes, which reminds of the consequentialist vs deontologist argument, each side not noticing they are on both sides.

He could never execute his plans.

He can be part of the gray mass calling loudly for those smarter who have the same goals.
He could be an assistent, a political functionary.
Though yes, it would be more interesting if someone with a stronger skill set came here.

Sure. That naturally follows the moment you see that a better outcome becomes possible if different choices were being made made. But... you already know that. It's a useless tautology.

The challenge isn't even self-improvement habbits. It's about keeping your behaviour/choices on-track with ALL of your goals. If you spend all of your time perfecting yourself you'll lose out on living

This is a good observation. Right now I am having trouble filling my time with things both useful and interesting. And I got a little out of balance with challenging myself.

Well, you want to make Rorydop as you want him so.. VA isn't alone.

Sure. And if you've got a problem with what you see as my lack of charity and want to make me as you want me so.....that'll lead to something or it won't.

Look at all those people who were against tracking/privacy invasion - now everyone has a tracker in their pocket that knows everything about their lives.

Not me, but I know what you mean.

I mean you do have a problem with him...

Sure, but my mission is complex. My optimism about changing him is tiny. My optimism about understanding how not to be troubled by the presence of people with similar beliefs and memes (including memes related to justification) is large. And I have practical use for that and also well-being use for that.

Hah! Be charitable to their view and then ignore them

There's bigger fish to fry.

Little fish can really fuck up my day to day life, so he's still useful. The big fish I'm generally never in the same space with.

I spent some time in India and in Ashrams in my youth. For all the swindling and nonsense they peddle it seemed like a useful enterprise to get Westnerners to finance Indian economic and social development programmes by being sold spirituality. It's a win-win.

My take is that it is not nonsense. I just dislike what they are doing. They have some cognitive technologies that do achieve certain goals. And I found it amazing to see what happened to some of the participants. How warm people with likely the usual hodge podge of problems and neuroses could become these streamlined scary 'kind' people who were not neurotic and likel had lower cortisol levels. Almost like androids. Sort of like demons being called up by Ouiji board users.

Westerners get enlightenment and peace of mind - Indians get hospitals/schools. Of course not all gurus was into their philantropy.

I don't know where the money went. Certainly villages and many businesses near ashrams got an economic boost.

So, I'm not sure what I should be more charitable about in relation to his posts. He has a useless insight, according to you.

No, his insights are absolutely true.

I was quoting you.

In some rudimentary manner. In so far as he might tell you that Mathematics offers no answers to Philosophical pursuits

But he's saying precisely the opposite. That it has a spiritual message.

Don't place blind faith in Mathematics! It's a human invention, not a human discovery.

yeah, I guess I don't see that many Pythagorians running around. And he's sort of a new school with some of that video.

You are refering to primitive arithmetic - the sort of stuff we all use day to day. Mathematics is muuuch bigger than that.

Of course. But his focus was on addition. Even mathemeticians, at least the couple I encountered at college, knew that 1+1=2 is conventional and that other formulations could also be true and starting points. And then whole realms in math that seemed to me to have little to do with numbers. The way he presented it it was tilting at windmills.

Thousands, or millions of publications even more complex than the Principia. Going deeper and deeper on weirder and more weirder abstract construction

Sure

See, the thing with Philosophical training is that it's incredibly formal and way too strict/rigit. Humans don't interact this way! Only academics interact this way!

I don't have philosophical training. I took a course in college and since it was a basic course, we wrote essays, with all the creative-non-fictiony aspect that word generally leads to. I've read some philosophers over the years, but they don't write, at least not the classice ones, like academic philosophy. Hell, that stuff can be like poetry or pontification without jusitification to very thought experimenty to....all over the place.

I do agree. A Hegel or a Nietschze coming here and presenting some of their writing would get torn apart. It's as if philosophers were film critics rather than filmmakers.

So i think it's a mistake to assume this "training" translates into real life.

My training here does. Out in the real world people have very similar attitudes and justification processes. They also glide around issues in similar ways. They are loathe to notice what they are actually doing or what their rationality really is up to or is. Often what I find here that is useful has nothing to do with me writing even a 2 paragraph long analysis. It can be a sentence long ju jitsu. It can be learning how what seems in context is not in context, as one example. I don't know what training it would be like to have a forum with academic philosophers. And I don't know what it would be like to have a forum with people who were very smart and idiosyncratic like most of the main philosophers studied in courses. What we have here is some trashy hyrid and it's very useful. It is precisely the 'here's why we should do X' mediocre and confused justifications for things I don't like (and sure, also things I like) are carried out by many people and organizations and corporations and media in my real life.

Which is why it's more interesting than The Philosophy Forum which is more charitable more experienced with philosophy, but lacks this really direct similarity to every day life and its various beauracrats, taking that term in the broadest sense.

I don't interact with the experts the palace uses and I don't interact with royalty. Not much anyway. So, here the skills are just peachy. And the toxicity that adheres to the insides of the skull is often really rather mediocre. But it's got a stickiness.

So, I find it quite useful.

I'd rather do role playing with a group of dedicated journymen and women, but it's been awhile since I've had the right contacts.

So, I do improv as a hobby.

But saying that and saddled with free time, perhaps I'll set up a role centered workshop outside of humor and see if I can get that going on the side.

Most people don't enjoy the game of challenging ideas - they don't have your "training"

Their enjoyment isn't a high priority for me. Not here.

This is a philosophy forum. Even if you are right about the problematic approach philosophy has, well, these people have chosen to come to a philosophy forum and lay out there ideas. There are hundreds of general discussion forums where one can expect a wider range of responses. It shouldn't be surprising to find certain kinds of challenges here and ones that are also fairly easily ignored if one wants. There are spirituality forums that Roydop could drop into - and while the competition would be stiff, that's also a good challenge, especially since he seems to be seeking followers.

How much do I value consensus at Philosophy Now? Yeah, not so highly. Not as a goal.

Another way of what I am doing is participating in essence starting to throw off of itself sticky memey goop and the parasitical entities that have been pouring this on us for a long time. Not saying VA and Roydop are parasticial entities, people can be carriers.

I sometimes thing the throwing off may function at a distance also, a little bit like Sheldrake's idea that if one creature learns how to X, it makes it easier for others to do X, even if they are not in direct local contact with each other.

I can't demonstrate this causal possibility, but it seems to be the case to me something.

In any case, that seems vastly more imporant than trying to get essence that really wants this goop on them to be in some kind of consensus.

[roydop]

Anyone with any sense of intuition at all would determine that burning the amount of fossil fuels that we do will distrupt the natural balance. No need of math there at all.

So, you were concerned about climate change, as opposed to other effects like pollution say, long before CC was an issue in the papers.

Also, I have never stated that math doesn't work.

You've said it's incorrect.
viewtopic.php?p=612864#p612864

It works to create the illusion (of separately existing phenomena).

That is one thing one could argue it does. It does other things. But you kept making this blanket statement that it is incorrect.

Mathematics offers no answers to any questions, it's just information that is being used to maximize profits and create technology (this technology has human consciousness helplessly mesmerized by the screen).

Well, again, it helped scientists make specific predictions about CC. It helps people when bartering in marketplaces going back to prehistoric times. It helps daycare workers make sure they have the right number of toddlers when they're field trips. And so on.

Language separates things also. So, we could blame it all on language, which you may also do. Here you separate out 'numbers' and blame them or blame mathematics for causing things. That's separating out existing phenomena. You're not blaming biology or plumbing. You're blaming math or the number system.

We could say that bodies only create technology to destroy. But then this ignores other things done.

We could say awareness contributes to the destruction of the earth, because if scientists weren't aware of tools, formulas, where to get funding, what they are doing, then they wouldn't do X and Y which are bad.

Now, prove to me that 1+1=2.

Why? In my experience it's a useful convention. My wife asks me to get two yoghurts which she needs to make a dinner. I know what she means. I get two. I know that when I reach up and get one, I still have one more to get. Then I have two. It works. That's so simple I am not adding. But with other requests I may very well add (or, with a shocking lack of care for the universe multiply: perhaps when determining the surface of the walls before I get the right amount of paint. It's working for me. A better questions is Why should I stop using addition.

You stated somewhere in one of your videos that we've all been convinced by a 360 page book. Nah. We came up with a way to make things work more clearly, long before Russell and Whitehead wrote that book. It works for us. People also use it for bad stuff. But then, bad stuff in terms of climate change includes the math that went into buidling your house, which looks pretty large. It goes into the tech you use to tell us about math.

Tell me why I shouldn't use math. Demonstrate why we should not use it period.

The point that I am making in all.of my posts is that the voice in one's head is not what one takes it to be. There is a greater purpose to all of THIS other than simply staying alive and running toward pleasure and away from pain.

This greater purpose is hidden by the voice in your head. It isn't you nor is it revealing truth. In fact the voice in your head is the Great Deceiver ("ignorance" in Taoism and Buddhism, "Satan" in Christianity, "Maya" in Hinduism)

So the entire human species is about to go extinct and possibly take all life on earth with it, because it has followed that voice in consciousness.

The path of Truth that leads to Reality is in the TRANSCENDENCE OF THOUGHT

That's it.

Now people here identify very strongly with that voice in their head. They know they exist when there is thought and when there is no thought their ego (whar they take Self to be) freaks out and then those people attack me.

It's very simple. Hardly any humans on the planet are capable of transcending thought so they just keep doubling down with MORE thought, MORE possessions, MORE experience. But the unreal will not be made real by any means. And so humanity is headed to a literal hell, and it's because humanity accepts the disembodied voice in consciousness rather than transcends it.

Take this or leave it. It is meant to help, but if it is ignored, then you get what you get

[Iwannaplato]

The point that I am making in all.of my posts is that the voice in one's head is not what one takes it to be.

Ok, we have overlap here. I think however there are voices in our heads, and distinguishing between them is important. So, if I am understanding your perspective it is words, period, flowing into the mind that are the problem. Here I disagree. On a mundane level some verbal thoughts are quite useful. Or a deeper level there are useful and kind messages in the voices in the head also.

Yes, there are pernicious voices. You haven't specifically mentioned this, but there are voices in the head that say terrible things and even harder to extricate oneself from, imply terrible things. This can be part of depression or closing yourself off to possibility or staying within maninstream veiws of what is possible or it can simple be an ongoing compression and stopping of oneself. Can be a voice of guilt or shame or self-hatred, etc. This voice need not be consciously noticed to be effective at causing damage.

But, as said, on the other hand, there can be positive voices and these need not be seen as intrapsychic, since they may well come from without.

There is a greater purpose to all of THIS other than simply staying alive and running toward pleasure and away from pain.

Well, every day I move toward goals that are not limited to this simple schema. I doubt most people here are. Yes, there are people who have such a simple overriding heuristic.

This greater purpose is hidden by the voice in your head. It isn't you nor is it revealing truth. In fact the voice in your head is the Great Deceiver ("ignorance" in Taoism and Buddhism, "Satan" in Christianity, "Maya" in Hinduism)

I recognize the reality of this voice, but it's not the only one there.

Now people here identify very strongly with that voice in their head. They know they exist when there is thought and when there is no thought their ego (whar they take Self to be) freaks out and then those people attack me.

I don't consider myself the same as my thoughts, even going including non-verbal thoughts.

It's very simple. Hardly any humans on the planet are capable of transcending thought so they just keep doubling down with MORE thought, MORE possessions, MORE experience. But the unreal will not be made real by any means. And so humanity is headed to a literal hell, and it's because humanity accepts the disembodied voice in consciousness rather than transcends it.

There are a number of ways to transcend. One is to strive for not having thoughts. Another is to disidentify with thoughts which you can see traditions and emphasize observing thoughts. And you can find different strains of Buddhism and HInduism that aim at these not quite the same goals.

There are similar traditions in Abrahamic religions, though these are generally forgotten and or less organized. In the East they have practices designed to do these things in careful stages and with teachers. I happen not to like those traditions becuase they see the emotions as problematic, per se, and they disengage us with parts of ourselves.

There are other traditions, much less popular in modern society that also deal with problems created by pernicious voices in the head and also thinking instead of living. I have some overlap with these.

So, let's say everyone you come in contact with starts meditating or uses other means to enter thought free awareness. How do you see this stopping corporations and governments from damaging the environment and us? How do you see people sitting, say, like you did in that video for a couple of hours, not thinking and being at peace, stopping pollution, damaging nano-tech, genetic organism product pollution, the threat from AI, war mongering governments and other threats to our lives?

Take this or leave it. It is meant to help, but if it is ignored, then you get what you get

Won't you also get it, even though you are immersed in thought free awareness? How does this protect you from what is coming?

[roydop]

None of experience is substantial. The hell that is approaching is just a nightmare. Being lucid through a nightmare removes all of the fear, as does experiencing all of THIS, in it's innate condition of unsubstantialness.

[Iwannaplato]

None of experience is substantial. The hell that is approaching is just a nightmare. Being lucid through a nightmare removes all of the fear, as does experiencing all of THIS, in it's innate condition of unsubstantialness.

It seems you are a physicalist when it is convenient...

Anyone with any sense of intuition at all would determine that burning the amount of fossil fuels that we do will distrupt the natural balance. No need of math there at all.

And not one when it is convenient.

You've warned people about what is coming to the earth. But really all you are saying is that people need to be in bliss/be lucid when nightmares comes.

Why would we all have the same nightmare?

[Agent Smith]

Is this a category mistake?