all it takes for something to exist is...

chopitdown · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

I think that goes without saying.

During synaptogenesis the brain develops by receiving stimuli and wiring neurons together via synapses. According to Hebb's rule, the more neurons fire, the closer they wire. Overtime this creates a strong engram, as in elderly people, these engrams can be indestructable. The more a person is exposed to an idea, the more they think about it, the stronger the engram grows. The stronger the engram, the more they think about the idea, the more they believe it. Thus why you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, or why ideas like God have lasted so long. Why new ideas like hard determinism and evolution are shunned. Regardless of their correctness, these new ideas lack the potency required to destroy the existing engrams. During a stage of cognitive dissonance, these new ideas with their weak engrams battle the existing ideas and their stronger engrams. It is almost inevitably the older ideas that win favour.

that in no way addresses your supposed martyrdom and delusion. Just b/c a patriot can get people to follow him doesn't mean he is right, anymore than if more people agree with you or your views makes you right.

Ahnimus · April 2007

angelica wrote:

The problem you are talking about is not related to God. If it were I would do the same thing, and I think you realize I am reasonable. (edit: reasonably so, at least)

What you are referring to is the psychological problem of our split psyche. Interestingly, this concept relates to our biblical fall from Grace. Humans are in such a place that we teach duality from birth. Included in up/down, back/forth etc, we have right/wrong. It's opposites. It is general human behaviour (except for people who seek a holisitic or non-split view) to do what you are referring to. We are taught some aspects of life and ourselves are "bad" and we start to deny them. We put them in the Jungian shadow, which furthermore distorts everything we look at. We see the whole world split into opposites. Our inner filters are clogged with these distorted judgments we've been taught. People are looking through these preconceived ideas and cannot see what really exists. Even if we did not have religion, it would not solve the problem because the issue is about the human psyche. Does this make sense? Any thoughts?

I have spent the past maybe five years doing "shadow work" which includes facing and addressing this stuff, so I can return my thinking to wholeness. The result is I have become so much more integrated, and the outcome has been a dramatically increased sense of reality appraisal compared to where I used to be. I will continue to clear up these distortions as they parade before my eyes in the actions of other people, in each day. By my subjective view, I take responsibility for all of the ugliness and "bad", or undesirableness I see outside of me. ANY "negative trait" I see in others, I own it as a reflection of my split inner view. This way I clear up my distortions. You might understand why a subjective reality view is an effecive tool for doing this type of work.

I'm very proud of you Angelica

and I'm not too far behind on that. It's just all too complicated to reverse the "common sense". Sometimes I think it's futile.

angelica · April 2007

chopitdown wrote:

that in no way addresses your supposed martyrdom and delusion. Just b/c a patriot can get people to follow him doesn't mean he is right, anymore than if more people agree with you or your views makes you right.

I think it's about basic teaching, though. If I don't want to take a course, or choose to open my mind in a debate, I don't have to. But if I put myself in the classroom, or the debate, it's my choice. If people don't want to connect with Ahnimus and hear his message they don't have to. The problem is that people choose to, maybe even thinking it's Ahnimus' fault that they get hooked in. Maybe they think they'll teach him a thing or two. He is basically reasonable, and will learn when a point is presented in a way he can hear it. Really, we wouldn't be here interacting with him if we weren't choosing it on some level. That choice is about us.

Granted, it's certainly understandable that people get frustrated with some of his techniques. He's not perfect. In the end, when we are really not interested, we will not engage with him. The problem is, people get hooked by the truths they are ready to hear, regardless of the messenger.

I fully support Ahnimus' vision. It's clear to me that he's very thoughtful and well-intended with it. And I'd watch out people, besides his personal flaws that he can't miraculously erase overnight, he knows what he's doing with his synapto-whatever.

He's crazy like a fox.

Ahnimus · April 2007

chopitdown wrote:

that in no way addresses your supposed martyrdom and delusion. Just b/c a patriot can get people to follow him doesn't mean he is right, anymore than if more people agree with you or your views makes you right.

Martyrdom? I'm not interested in sacrficing my life for my beliefs. That seems like a stretch from what I've been saying. If I die, then who will express my opinion?

Well, I am right, I don't need others to validate it.

Ahnimus · April 2007

angelica wrote:

I think it's about basic teaching, though. If I don't want to take a course, or choose to open my mind in a debate, I don't have to. But if I put myself in the classroom, or the debate, it's my choice. If people don't want to connect with Ahnimus and hear his message they don't have to. The problem is that people choose to, maybe even thinking it's Ahnimus' fault that they get hooked in. Maybe they think they'll teach him a thing or two. He is basically reasonable, and will learn when a point is presented in a way he can hear it. Really, we wouldn't be here interacting with him if we weren't choosing it on some level. That choice is about us.

Granted, it's certainly understandable that people get frustrated with some of his techniques. He's not perfect. In the end, when we are really not interested, we will not engage with him. The problem is, people get hooked by the truths they are ready to hear, regardless of the messenger.

I fully support Ahnimus' vision. It's clear to me that he's very thoughtful and well-intended with it. And I'd watch out people, besides his personal flaws that he can't miraculously erase overnight, he knows what he's doing with his synapto-whatever. He's crazy like a fox.

I'll take that as a compliment, lol. Thanks Angelica, foxes are sly though. I was about to say you are sly like a fox, then I thought, wait, are foxes crazy? Now you got me all confused.

angelica · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

I'll take that as a compliment, lol. Thanks Angelica, foxes are sly though. I was about to say you are sly like a fox, then I thought, wait, are foxes crazy? Now you got me all confused.

It was a compliment. I guess you've figured out that expression. Foxes aren't really too crazy...they are actually sly..... Has anyone ever told you you are very literal??

I understand why people are frustrated by you, because you seemingly aren't willing to sharpen down those edges that snag and irritate people so much. You actually provide them/(me) great material to project an evil character onto.

Ahnimus · April 2007

angelica wrote:

It was a compliment. I guess you've figured out that expression. Foxes aren't really too crazy...they are actually sly..... Has anyone ever told you you are very literal??

I understand why people are frustrated by you, because you seemingly aren't willing to sharpen down those edges that snag and irritate people so much. You actually provide them/(me) great material to project an evil character onto.

Heh, this is a debate forum, not really interested in rubbing shoulders here.

I do tend to take things a bit too literally, but that's just because my model was made that way.

angelica · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

I'm very proud of you Angelica and I'm not too far behind on that. It's just all too complicated to reverse the "common sense". Sometimes I think it's futile.

Thanks Ahnimus.

lol at the common sense part! We're driven to evolve. Everyone is doing so, which is why we can't judge anyone as being wrong for being where they are. We each DO progress and it's humbling for me to see.

I want to say, though, the reason the God-types who believe in the biblical free will, including myself, perceive this, is because on a level beyond logic and beyond the phsyical world and for some of us firmly transposed on the physical world, we have perception of it. We sense it, and know it and feel it. We sense our connection to this source and we intuitively know that we are one with it. We know we can connect in prayer or meditation, or in gratitude. We know it is real. And from this level of understanding, we know that we have the divinity of choice in each moment. In my spiritual revelations, I have been shown that I have chosen all of my pain, sorrow and mental illness in order to get where I am. And I would do it all over again to get here, in a heartbeat. I chose it before this life and I chose it unconsciously in each moment that I experienced it through this life. Hopefully you can see that this perception of choice is sacred and beautiful to us. It is far beyond our human and evolutionarily normal psychologically messed up behaviours.

I'm not sure about farfromglorified, but I suspect his natural highly philosophical nature allows him to perceive the value of this level of choice, even when he does not believe in a biblical God. Like many others who easily believe in free will. It's beyond physical science. I found a Bohr speech last night that addressed this.

I'm not sure what the difference is between someone like myself and someone who believes like you. At this point, it looks like some people are less naturally inclined to perceive that spiritual sense. I wonder if you do perceive it, (in the Einstein sense) and that you just perceive it differently. The only thing you show externally is that you opt not to put your attention or consideration there. If you say that in terms of discussion, fair enough. If you actually just don't bother looking into the metaphysical, because you see no point to, it makes sense that you won't develop that part of yourself, where others might. I very actively work on developing that part of myself.

lucylespian · April 2007

angelica wrote:

I think it's about basic teaching, though. If I don't want to take a course, or choose to open my mind in a debate, I don't have to. But if I put myself in the classroom, or the debate, it's my choice. If people don't want to connect with Ahnimus and hear his message they don't have to. The problem is that people choose to, maybe even thinking it's Ahnimus' fault that they get hooked in. Maybe they think they'll teach him a thing or two. He is basically reasonable, and will learn when a point is presented in a way he can hear it. Really, we wouldn't be here interacting with him if we weren't choosing it on some level. That choice is about us.

Granted, it's certainly understandable that people get frustrated with some of his techniques. He's not perfect. In the end, when we are really not interested, we will not engage with him. The problem is, people get hooked by the truths they are ready to hear, regardless of the messenger.

I fully support Ahnimus' vision. It's clear to me that he's very thoughtful and well-intended with it. And I'd watch out people, besides his personal flaws that he can't miraculously erase overnight, he knows what he's doing with his synapto-whatever. He's crazy like a fox.

I don't always engage in debate , or exhaustively follow a debate I may be engaged in at some point, mainly due to time restraints, and my core belief about teh futility and indesirablility of arguement, but I hugely appreciaite teh stimulus to interesting and intriuging discussion that ahnimus provides.
I probably agree with him more than I disagree, and my innate nature is to be right, rahter than to be liked, though here I tend to take the softer line of getting along wiht people rather than antagonising them.

But the world depends on unreawsonable people for progress, people who are prepared to buck teh status quo, and fo out on alimb and be prepared to be disliked for it.

The only shame about ahnimus, is that he is an amateur academic working for $12/hr, rather than a professional, and being valued more highly for his intellect and insights.

Ahnimus · April 2007

angelica wrote:

Thanks Ahnimus. lol at the common sense part! We're driven to evolve. Everyone is doing so, which is why we can't judge anyone as being wrong for being where they are. We each DO progress and it's humbling for me to see.

I want to say, though, the reason the God-types who believe in the biblical free will, including myself, perceive this, is because on a level beyond logic and beyond the phsyical world and for some of us firmly transposed on the physical world, we have perception of it. We sense it, and know it and feel it. We sense our connection to this source and we intuitively know that we are one with it. We know we can connect in prayer or meditation, or in gratitude. We know it is real. And from this level of understanding, we know that we have the divinity of choice in each moment. In my spiritual revelations, I have been shown that I have chosen all of my pain, sorrow and mental illness in order to get where I am. And I would do it all over again to get here, in a heartbeat. I chose it before this life and I chose it unconsciously in each moment that I experienced it through this life. Hopefully you can see that this perception of choice is sacred and beautiful to us. It is far beyond our human and evolutionarily normal psychologically messed up behaviours.

I'm not sure about farfromglorified, but I suspect his natural highly philosophical nature allows him to perceive the value of this level of choice, even when he does not believe in a biblical God. Like many others who easily believe in free will. It's beyond physical science. I found a Bohr speech last night that addressed this.

I'm not sure what the difference is between someone like myself and someone who believes like you. At this point, it looks like some people are less naturally inclined to perceive that spiritual sense. I wonder if you do perceive it, (in the Einstein sense) and that you just perceive it differently. The only thing you show externally is that you opt not to put your attention or consideration there. If you say that in terms of discussion, fair enough. If you actually just don't bother looking into the metaphysical, because you see no point to, it makes sense that you won't develop that part of yourself, where others might. I very actively work on developing that part of myself.

Actually in this book Susan Blackmore and Bernard Baars discuss meditation and the experiences they have. Both choose to ignore those experiences in their research and daily lives. They refer to Pure Consciousness, yet, they don't attribute it to any higher level of knowledge, rather, as Vedanta? theology describes it, it's a complete lack of all thought or conscious experience. It's somehow consciousness void of conscious experience. Something I am skeptical of given the nature of the neural correlates of consciousness.

Ahnimus · April 2007

lucylespian wrote:

I don't always engage in debate , or exhaustively follow a debate I may be engaged in at some point, mainly due to time restraints, and my core belief about teh futility and indesirablility of arguement, but I hugely appreciaite teh stimulus to interesting and intriuging discussion that ahnimus provides.
I probably agree with him more than I disagree, and my innate nature is to be right, rahter than to be liked, though here I tend to take the softer line of getting along wiht people rather than antagonising them.

But the world depends on unreawsonable people for progress, people who are prepared to buck teh status quo, and fo out on alimb and be prepared to be disliked for it.

The only shame about ahnimus, is that he is an amateur academic working for $12/hr, rather than a professional, and being valued more highly for his intellect and insights.

I love you too Lucy. Say, this is really a sandwhich in my pocket.

I'm considering higher education because people keep telling me to go become a scientist or whatever. I guess it sounds cool. But this way I'm not constrained by scientific dogma. Such as cosmologists have to abide by the pretense of Big Bang theory, or their funding is cut. On the other hand, I'd get to stick electrodes in brains and shit, that'd be cool.

Jeanie · April 2007

catefrances wrote:

well well well, the idiots truly have taken over the asylum.

jeez guys why don't you just whip 'em out and we'll see whose is bigger?

So cate, I'm really curious to hear what you have to say.

What your thoughts are on existence.

I'm dead keen to hear from others about their thoughts too.

Just for a change.

soulsinging · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

Not hardwired in every case, but strongly influenced. It allows us to develop humane systems of rehabilitation, contrary to our current methods.

we're moving to those methods anyway, without your philosophies. do you not see how your belief system could just as easily be corrupted as current christian thought has been?

lucylespian · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

I love you too Lucy. Say, this is really a sandwhich in my pocket.

I'm considering higher education because people keep telling me to go become a scientist or whatever. I guess it sounds cool. But this way I'm not constrained by scientific dogma. Such as cosmologists have to abide by the pretense of Big Bang theory, or their funding is cut. On the other hand, I'd get to stick electrodes in brains and shit, that'd be cool.

Just don't want to see you gagged.

BTW cate, this thread is a cracker. Iwent to bed on page 4 the other night, and next day it was up to like page 16 and now it's close to thirty.

Ahnimus, , you are unfortunately too close to being right about teh dogma part, but that trait is slowly evolving too. What you mean is, that you have to agree with your proefssor, or you don't get a post-grad position.

Some of the giants of history have been some of the worst for this, and impeded progress for decades.
Galen springs to mind, he svagely attacked anyone who disputed him and took medical research back hundreds of years, because of a religious belief in teh four humours, rather than a sound scientific doubt about his own convictions.

I think it is fair for people on the board to suspect you of having the same flaw.

Ahnimus · April 2007

soulsinging wrote:

we're moving to those methods anyway, without your philosophies. do you not see how your belief system could just as easily be corrupted as current christian thought has been?

Uh no, because Christianity and the current "common sense" is simply an exploitation of my thoughts. The idea of determinism predates any theology. It predates christianity by a long shot. Many of these dogmas were developed by people in the know to motivated and influence the masses.

soulsinging · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

Uh no, because Christianity and the current "common sense" is simply an exploitation of my thoughts. The idea of determinism predates any theology. It predates christianity by a long shot. Many of these dogmas were developed by people in the know to motivated and influence the masses.

i dont even know what you're saying here. how are common sense and christianity "exploiting your thoughts?" what thoughts are they exploiting? religion is as old as the hills and someone always distorts it. even if you replace theology with abtract philosophy, people will find a way to distort it and make it less about science and more about belief. look at the scientologists or the hale-bopp cult. people could just as easily take your beliefs and instead of using them to promote compassionate rehabilitation, they will talk about how people's behavior is determined, so we should just execute these people to remove the inevitable threat to society cos they will never be able to choose to become good, they will just continue to act the way they were programmed.

lucylespian · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

Uh no, because Christianity and the current "common sense" is simply an exploitation of my thoughts. The idea of determinism predates any theology. It predates christianity by a long shot. Many of these dogmas were developed by people in the know to motivated and influence the masses.

I strongly dispute that there is any such thing as common sense.
What is thought of as common sense, is really small items of specific knowledge, which are possessed or shared by many people but not everybody. Often these datum pieces are acquired without any specific training. Eg, I might work out a solution to a problem without prompting, how to tie a shoelace for example, but that does not mean I possess "common sense", just that I chanced to find the same solution. Most "common sense" datum pieces will be taught though.
We have a distressing tendency to think that anyone who does not share our datum piece subset as having no "common sense". I guess what they lack is "common knowledge". I have been accused of this countless times in my life, yet I could bore you to tears with what I do know.

This is the basis of tribalism. Those who share my datum sub-set belong to my tribe. I shall test you to see if you know my rituals to see if you belong !!

Ahnimus · April 2007

soulsinging wrote:

i dont even know what you're saying here. how are common sense and christianity "exploiting your thoughts?" what thoughts are they exploiting? religion is as old as the hills and someone always distorts it. even if you replace theology with abtract philosophy, people will find a way to distort it and make it less about science and more about belief. look at the scientologists or the hale-bopp cult. people could just as easily take your beliefs and instead of using them to promote compassionate rehabilitation, they will talk about how people's behavior is determined, so we should just execute these people to remove the inevitable threat to society cos they will never be able to choose to become good, they will just continue to act the way they were programmed.

Exploited a la Illuminati. The ancient Sumerians of Mesapotamia, predating Christianity by about 1500 years, wrote about such things.

Ahnimus · April 2007

lucylespian wrote:

I strongly dispute that there is any such thing as common sense.
What is thought of as common sense, is really small items of specific knowledge, which are possessed or shared by many people but not everybody. Often these datum pieces are acquired without any specific training. Eg, I might work out a solution to a problem without prompting, how to tie a shoelace for example, but that does not mean I possess "common sense", just that I chanced to find the same solution. Most "common sense" datum pieces will be taught though.
We have a distressing tendency to think that anyone who does not share our datum piece subset as having no "common sense". I guess what they lack is "common knowledge". I have been accused of this countless times in my life, yet I could bore you to tears with what I do know.

This is the basis of tribalism. Those who share my datum sub-set belong to my tribe. I shall test you to see if you know my rituals to see if you belong !!

I agree with you, in Einsteins words "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen", but also in your light, Common sense is the collection of common knowledge. Such things are mostly stereotypical though. "Girls mature faster than boys." is a stereotypical common sense. In-fact girls do physically mature at earlier stages in development than boys. This says absolutely nothing about their social maturity which is not solely biological. There are things such as radiation from flourescent lighting and computer monitors that also accelerate physical maturity, so this statement may not be true in every case. Yet it seems to be a common knowledge, or prejudice.

Anyway, the whole idea of "common sense" is bullshit.

Test away

soulsinging · April 2007

Ahnimus wrote:

Exploited a la Illuminati. The ancient Sumerians of Mesapotamia, predating Christianity by about 1500 years, wrote about such things.

about what such things? and i notice you did not answer my other contentions. even if people agree with your determinism premise, they will diverge over its implications for social issues. thus, it is no better than christianity. just as all christians believe in jesus and the bible, but some favor trying to be compassionate and rehabilitate criminals, and others believe in eye for an eye justice.

all it takes for something to exist is...

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