Concerning truth, beliefs and all that.

2

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  • Cosmo
    Cosmo Posts: 12,225
    I think I often get mistaken as some one who hates religion. Not true... I simply choose to avoid religion for myself. I believe faith and hope are great human traits and people who find faith and hope in the church... more power to you.
    And I don't believe Science has all of the answers, either. There are very few truths we can find in this Universe. Many of the truths, in both spiritual and scientific teachings are beliefs or theories, not the absolute truth. About the only thing I know as a truth, other than 1 + 1 = 2, is that anyone who claims to KNOW the truth... does not.
    I also believe that I will never know within the span of my life. I don't know whether or not the answers will be revealed to me as I pass, alone, through Death's doorway. So, I look for it out here. I know I will never find it... but, I like the searching.
    Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
    Hail, Hail!!!
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    But 1+1 is not 5.

    Photons are received by your fovea and coded for projection to V1 (I believe) then the information gets recoded and sent to LGN, lateral something nucleus in the thalamus.

    This is simple 1+1=2. But sometimes people will say "See, you don't see with your eyes, it's in your head." This can easily be proven by slicing one's optic nerve and then navigating a maze.

    No one will ever do that without being insane.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    Ahnimus wrote:
    You'd still probably have died by the age of 3 without modern science.

    The infant mortality rate has hugely declined since ancient times, due largely to medical sciences.

    As the argument goes for God, God is the ultimate source of good and bad things only exist so that we can see that. I used the same argument for science above, in jest of course.

    I agree with Dan that you must take the bad with the good. But believing in something that is knowably false is called a delusion. I don't particularly want to be deluded. I can work every day, pay my bills and obey the law without ever believing the universe is just or even that society is just.

    im not methuselah ryan. i was born in the 60s. LMAO!! :D:D
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  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    Then there are those who say that all of reality is a product of our mind, it's what we make of it.

    Anton-Babinski syndrome kind of negates that theory though. For here are subjects who actually believe they see full and well, but are actually sightless, their brains confabulated a visual perception that is not actually there and their interaction with the environment proves it.

    The sudden development of bilateral occipital dysfunction is likely to produce transient physical and psychical effects in which mental confusion may be prominent. It may be some days before the relatives, or the nursing staff, tumble to the fact that the patient has actually become sightless. This is not only because the patient ordinarily does not volunteer the information that he has become blind, but he furthermore misleads his entourage by behaving and talking as though he were sighted. Attention is aroused however when the patient is found to collide with pieces of furniture, to fall over objects, and to experience difficulty in finding his way around. He may try to walk through a wall or through a closed door on his way from one room to another. Suspicion is still further alerted when he begins to describe people and objects around him which, as a matter of fact, are not there at all. Thus we have the twin symptoms of anosognosia (or lack of awareness of defect) and confabulation, the latter affecting both speech and behaviour. ("Modes of reaction to central blindness", in The Divine Banquet of the Brain, Raven, New York, 1979, p. 156)

    This is the type of stuff that is largely ignored in favor of some of the more ludicrous beliefs.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I can work every day, pay my bills and obey the law without ever believing the universe is just or even that society is just.
    So why the activist streak? Unless you really believe in justice, you just dont think it is achieved yet. Which would mean that you are not as cool about injustice as you make yourself out to be. (Your views on criminalism, case in point)

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    So why the activist streak? Unless you really believe in justice, you just dont think it is achieved yet. Which would mean that you are not as cool about injustice as you make yourself out to be. (Your views on criminalism, case in point)

    Peace
    Dan

    I believe in an establishment of human justice, but I feel the current system is so far off the mark.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I believe in an establishment of human justice, but I feel the current system is so far off the mark.
    Precisely. You believe the lie, in order to realize it. (highly unscientific) And you may, if you get enough people with you on the lie. I could be somewhat favourable. :)

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    Precisely. You believe the lie, in order to realize it. (highly unscientific) And you may, if you get enough people with you on the lie. I could be somewhat favourable. :)

    Peace
    Dan

    It's not a lie. Justice is a lie. But the establishment of justice is not. It's a basic reward-response system that allows humans to learn. In rats, i think it was, VUM is the neuron that is involved in the dopamergenic reward-response system. It upregulates when a reward is received coupled to a stimulus in time by about 500 milliseconds. If the reward and stimulus disassociate then VUM downregulates or something. I don't remember exact details. But anyway, this is how the rat brain learns what is good for it and what is bad for it. Humans have similar systems, when we are punished, we learn that certain behaviours are bad for us. That is the important part.

    The kind of justice involving burning witches, hanging homosexuals and tagging muslims, that is the lie. The lie is that people are intentionally evil.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Ahnimus wrote:
    It's not a lie. Justice is a lie. But the establishment of justice is not. It's a basic reward-response system that allows humans to learn. In rats, i think it was, VUM is the neuron that is involved in the dopamergenic reward-response system. It upregulates when a reward is received coupled to a stimulus in time by about 500 milliseconds. If the reward and stimulus disassociate then VUM downregulates or something. I don't remember exact details. But anyway, this is how the rat brain learns what is good for it and what is bad for it. Humans have similar systems, when we are punished, we learn that certain behaviours are bad for us. That is the important part.

    The kind of justice involving burning witches, hanging homosexuals and tagging muslims, that is the lie. The lie is that people are intentionally evil.
    No, the fundamental lie is that there is anything like justice outside of human (collective) imagination. The universe happens (you, a determinist won't deny me that). The universe is largely not a moral thing. Justice is dependant on morals which depend on humans (or other conscious entities in the universe that may have developed similar things). In order to establish something, the belief in it must be there from before.

    You are fundamentally making a moral argument here, although backing it up with rats. You maintain the establishment of justice, meaning you believe in justice on face value without underpinnings. (although you can make them if you really try) Hence, you are about realizing a lie. Which is what all people in the world are trying to do. Politics is notorious for it. Belief in lies leads to establishing them and making them reality.

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    Ahnimus wrote:
    The kind of justice involving burning witches, hanging homosexuals and tagging muslims, that is the lie. The lie is that people are intentionally evil.

    but that's not justice. in these cases tis not that justice is a lie tis that justice is nonexistent.
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  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    No, the fundamental lie is that there is anything like justice outside of human (collective) imagination. The universe happens (you, a determinist won't deny me that). The universe is largely not a moral thing. Justice is dependant on morals which depend on humans (or other conscious entities in the universe that may have developed similar things). In order to establish something, the belief in it must be there from before.

    You are fundamentally making a moral argument here, although backing it up with rats. You maintain the establishment of justice, meaning you believe in justice on face value without underpinnings. (although you can make them if you really try) Hence, you are about realizing a lie. Which is what all people in the world are trying to do. Politics is notorious for it. Belief in lies leads to establishing them and making them reality.

    Peace
    Dan

    I only believe justice is necessary because of my knowledge of neuroscience. I believe in justice with underpinnings. Because I deny any claim that justice is a fundamental part of the universe. It must be substantiated by some facts. But I believe in Justice, not punishment. Which is a lot different.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I only believe justice is necessary because of my knowledge of neuroscience. I believe in justice with underpinnings. Because I deny any claim that justice is a fundamental part of the universe. It must be substantiated by some facts. But I believe in Justice, not punishment. Which is a lot different.

    I will withhold judgement of this post until neuroscience takes care of Kiefer Sutherland.
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    gue_barium wrote:
    I will withhold judgement of this post until neuroscience takes care of Kiefer Sutherland.
    Q: You think it will go all the way to the NeuroSupreme Court?
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    gue_barium wrote:
    Q: You think it will go all the way to the NeuroSupreme Court?

    That depends on the pre-trial neuron hearing.
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  • catefrances
    catefrances Posts: 29,003
    you okay gue? you seem to be talking to yourself. :)
    hear my name
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  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    catefrances wrote:
    you okay gue? you seem to be talking to yourself. :)
    That damn Justice System. It always always gets me going when I forget the prozac.
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  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I only believe justice is necessary because of my knowledge of neuroscience. I believe in justice with underpinnings. Because I deny any claim that justice is a fundamental part of the universe. It must be substantiated by some facts. But I believe in Justice, not punishment. Which is a lot different.
    And that's fine. But that is a value judgement and has little to do with neuroscience in itself. That you base your belief and want for justice in neuroscience is fine, but it is still a value judgement, and hence, according to the lines laid down by DEATH, essentially a lie.

    There is no "need" for justice outside human value judgements.

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • gue_barium
    gue_barium Posts: 5,515
    The 5th Circuit District Cortex is now in session.
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  • Sian-of-the-dead
    Sian-of-the-dead Posts: 8,963
    OutOfBreath wrote:
    Here is a passage from Pratchett's book "Hogfather" from the discworld setting. The exchange is from the end of the book where DEATH and Susan have just saved the hogfather from dying. (A sort of father christmas character. The hogfather turned out to be originally a sun god, that had to branch out. Hence the sun analogy)
    Susan questions DEATH about the importance of what they just did. I really like the words of DEATH here. (as I usually do, as DEATH is a great character.) I was reminded of this after watching the tv special. (recommended)

    Here goes:
    S: What would have happened if I hadn’t?
    D: WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN’T SAVED HIM?
    S: Yes.
    D: THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
    S: Then what would have happened?
    D: A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
    S: All right, I’m not stupid. You’re saying that humans need fantasies to make life bearable.
    D: NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE
    S: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
    D: YES, THAT’S PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
    S: So we can believe the big ones?
    D: YES. JUSTICE, MERCY, DUTY, THAT SORT OF THING.
    S: They’re not the same at all.
    D: YOU THINK SO?
    THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT TO THE FINEST POWDER, AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE, AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY AND YET…
    YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD. AS IF THERE IS SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
    S: But people have to believe that. What’s the point?
    D: YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT ARE NOT TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

    Pratchett is also the man behind the awesome quote:

    "Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong."
    Terry Pratchett

    Enjoy.

    Peace
    Dan

    Thats just given me goosebumps, I forgot how good that book is and how meaningful those words were to me. Thanks :)
    I've gotta read that book again.
    Been to this many PJ shows: Reading 2006 London 2007 Manchester & London 2009 Dublin, Belfast, London, Nijmegen & Berlin 2010 Manchester 1 & Manchester 2 2012...

    ... and I still think Drive-By Truckers are better.
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    gue_barium wrote:
    The 5th Circuit District Cortex is now in session.
    I'm not sure why I'm laughing really, but that one tickled my funnybone, coming after the other random posts. :)
    It's Monty Pythonish absurdly funny. I dunno. :D

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965

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