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Do clever people outsmart themselves?

I will repeat my old point here: exactly what reality is, is really just a red herring for most practical purposes. What really matters the most is this: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick

It may seem flippant, but actually it's all the definition you need for most practical purposes. More importantly, you'll notice that it conspicuously lacks any conditions for how it works, what it really is, and what the relationship might be between the mind and the world, or whatever.

Essentially, to go with David's cage full of tigers scenario, the tiger and me may well be simulated by a giant alien computer. It may be a shared collective dream. It may all be a Star Trek holodeck scenario. Or whatever. But ultimately it really doesn't matter, and that's why getting bogged in those discussions is ultimately irrelevant for virtually any practical scenarios.

What matters is this: Can I make the tigers disappear if I try really really hard to stop believing they're there? No. Can I stop them from biting when their food is brought? No. Then that's really all I need to know in order to figure out that solipsism won't actually help if I try entering the cage either.

And I don't know what stops me from making them disappear. Maybe, if it's a simulation, the alien programmer of this simulation didn't give that kind of admin power to everyone. Maybe, if it's a collective dream, then everyone else's mind is stopping me from altering the dreams that way. Maybe, if it's my own dream, I don't control the part of the brain that's generating the dream. Or whatever.

But that's not important. What's important is that there are parts that I can't control. I'll conventionally call the collection of those parts "reality".

And given that those parts outside my control exist, I will claim that:

1. Debating their exact nature and how really real are they, is ultimately not making any difference. And

2. Those things work by their own rules, that I can't change by just wishing it to be different. Which is just another way of saying: magical thinking doesn't work. There is still an advantage to learn the way those things actually work, instead of trying magical thinking instead.
 
theprestige said:
...I don't see a lot of "dumb" people here. Just a lot of smart people harboring a lot of hate.
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While undoubtedly true, surely that's more a function of being online, of impersonal and anonymous interactions, rather than smarts?

Besides, while there are exceptions, I guess what we see here in general is not so much hatred as bluntness that would probably be considered extremely rude, even psychotic, IRL.
 
Scorpion said:
I know a lot of people on this forum are very clever, and might be described as intellectuals, but does that mean they cannot understand wisdom that is available to simple people. I think it was probably the Buddha who said,
"the mind is the great slayer of the real".
If there is a God he would hardly make it impossible to realize him without a high functioning intellect. Most religious people accept their beliefs on faith not by reasoning. Religious doctrines may serve only to pacify the mind so that a person can open their heart to spiritual experiences. It may not matter if the doctrine is absolutely true. A simple person of faith can experience much comfort and inner peace from believing in doctrines that sharper intellects find fault with.
So I put it to the forum that you may be outsmarting yourselves.
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They can also inflict misery and horror on people who don't believe the same way they do.
 
Hellbound said:
So, I have a lego set.

Included in the set are the usual bricks and flats, as well as ramp pieces, clear pieces, and some wheels. And a motorized bit that runs with batteries.

I use this lego set to build a car. I can turn it own, and it moves under it's own power. It rolls.

According to Scorpion, my car is an illusion. I don't have a car, I have a collection of Lego blocks.

For that matter, cars don't exist, either. I don't drive to work in a Nissan Sentra; that's just an illusion. I have a collection of metal, plastic, and rubber parts with a few fluids mixed in.

For that matter, even his statement that we're all made of atoms is just an illusion. Atoms are made of electrons, neutrons, and protons, which are in turn made of quarks. So atoms are an illusion.

This is a patently ridiculous position to hold.

And they say scientists are overly reductionist.
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If you listen to a lot of philosophically based Woo or Woo apologetics you''l start to see this weird, "things that can be broken down into other things can't things under cold hard unemotional science (scare chord)" thing pop up a lot.

Very often you'll get a Woo Slinger doing that "Ah but X isn't a thing, it's just a bunch of other things!" Mic Drop and then they'll just act like they were telling us something we don't know or are supposed to be impressed or what said was meaningful in any way at all.
 
JoeMorgue said:
If you listen to a lot of philosophically based Woo or Woo apologetics you''l start to see this weird, "things that can be broken down into other things can't things under cold hard unemotional science (scare chord)" thing pop up a lot.

Very often you'll get a Woo Slinger doing that "Ah but X isn't a thing, it's just a bunch of other things!" Mic Drop and then they'll just act like they were telling us something we don't know or are supposed to be impressed or what said was meaningful in any way at all.
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Yeah, for all their claims about looking at things "holistically" they seem to categorically that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. Something also patently obvious. A pile of parts is just that, but put together in the right way they make various processes of motion and combustion come into being that aren't a property of any individual part, of their configuration.

Likewise to pretty much the entirety of his arguments. An atom may be mostly empty space, bu the electron cloud around it gives it an effective space to other atoms (because of their electron clouds).
 
JoeMorgue said:
Oh... okay I get it.

You think how people interact with you is how happy they are.

Might want to take a few steps back and take in the bigger picture there.

You're... let me be charitable here and say hard to interact with.
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That's the reason I use a certain forum function.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Wait...are you suggesting Zeus doesn't exist, or that he does exist but lacks a butthole? I expect a lot of people would say a god shouldn't have a buttholes because defecation is against their divine dignity (like the elves in Tolkien), but I think those people are forgetting that Greek gods really did a whole bunch of sex constantly and being experts and connoisseurs of sex they would most definitely involve buttholes.

I challenge the validity of your bizarre buttholeless pantheon, and am prepared to cite a lot of Greek myths and some specialized Tumblr pages in evidence.
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Great Klono's tungsten teeth can anyone be so blind???
 
Foster Zygote said:
The DPRK once reported that Kim Jong-il did not defecate, but no clarification was offered as to whether he possessed a butt-hole and simply didn't use it in the typical way, or if he was a culinary cul-de-sac.
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He could just be an enema enthusiast...
 
Actually I might have to change my original answer. Zeus was a freak in the sheets and Greek. Not to put to fine a point on it but... yeah he probably had a butthole. For... doing stuff.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Actually I might have to change my original answer. Zeus was a freak in the sheets and Greek. Not to put to fine a point on it but... yeah he probably had a butthole. For... doing stuff.
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Considering he changed into a bull and a golden shower for, urm, "entertainment' purposes, I bet he had as many buttholes as he wanted.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Unclear. Where do you stand on the question: "Does Zeus have a butthole?" I'm firmly in the Yes camp. It just makes more sense.
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JoeMorgue said:
Actually I might have to change my original answer. Zeus was a freak in the sheets and Greek. Not to put to fine a point on it but... yeah he probably had a butthole. For... doing stuff.
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Hellbound said:
Considering he changed into a bull and a golden shower for, urm, "entertainment' purposes, I bet he had as many buttholes as he wanted.
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I hope you all understand. I'm real uncomfortable with this discussion. Is this how it came to be known as Greek?
 
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