Former conspiracy believer here

[Nick227]

Is that to be interpreted as meaning someone with greater experience has more credibility?

MM

If you have to ask me how you should interpret something, MM, man do you need to slacken those wingnuts off! Are you terrified of your own mind or what?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Circular reasoning, apparently.

In trying to answer a question about the nature of the self do you -

(a) try and quote a bunch of neuroscience you barely understand, or
(b) look inside your own mind and seek the answer

You trust science more that you trust yourself, Belz. You shouldn't do that **** to yourself, man.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I don't trust my perceptions. I'd rather trust empirical science,

Belz, man, you need to learn to trust yourself. Really! I mean it. It's a life necessity. Don't believe **** about yourself. Don't take that position.

because I couldn't tell if it's my bias guiding me. I guess you skipped that part of science class.

Listen to me, man, because you need guidance. Empirical science is great, but there are things that only you can see. That's the nature of reality. There's stuff you can see and others can see and there's stuff only you can see. Now, empirical science can function with the stuff we all can see, but don't dismiss what only you can see. Really. I mean it. That stuff's important too. It's important to YOU. It's who you are. Don't dismiss it because if you do you dismiss yourself. Take a position. I don't care if you totally oppose what I write. I don't really give a **** about Alchemy, man. I'm a therapist. The thing is...take a position. For yourself. Don't just follow the herd. Stand up and ****ing shout it out.

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

You can think about thoughts, for sure. But you can also simply become aware of them. Remain seated, shut your eyes, and watch. Stay watching until you see it. It can take some time. There can be a chain of ideation set off by thoughts, but you can also just watch thought. After a while the sense of personal identity dissipates. It's very relaxing!

That is thinking about thoughts.

At a certain point identification comes back in, the personal self is recreated and you go about your daily business.

It never went away. You just weren't thinking about it.

Objectivity is just a mindset.

No, it's an epistemology.

I can put it on and I can let it slide off.

Not if you want to actually get anything done, you can't.

I know the true value of objectivity because I have something to contrast it with, and the value isn't so much. Of course, try and tell this to you, Pixy, who actually believes objectivity is truth, and I wasting my time for sure.

Indeed. Objectivity rests on an assumption, sure, but it works.

You will just have to wait until your body dies to see for a few seconds that objectivity has actually very little to do with anything. I think death is the only experience that will show you the difference between reality and conceptualisation. It doesn't have to be this way.

Ah. I take it then that you are dead, and base your objections to objectivity on this fact?

 

[PixyMisa]

It actually means whatever you conceive it to mean. In a person experiencing rising self-awareness their sense of selfhood expands until they are aware of the true meaning and significance of the ego.

Every noun and verb in this sentence refers to thoughts.

If the best rationalism can come up with is "the thoughts experience themselves" then that's about the most damning indictment of science I've ever heard! For God's sake, you just sit down and watch them.

If you "just sit down and watch them", you are thinking about your thoughts, which rather proves the point we are making.

 

[PixyMisa]

In trying to answer a question about the nature of the self do you -

(a) try and quote a bunch of neuroscience you barely understand, or
(b) look inside your own mind and seek the answer

You trust science more that you trust yourself, Belz. You shouldn't do that **** to yourself, man.

Of course we trust science more than we trust ourselves! Anyone who claims even the most fleeting contact with psychology should understand why this is so.

 

[Belz...]

In trying to answer a question about the nature of the self do you -

(a) try and quote a bunch of neuroscience you barely understand, or
(b) look inside your own mind and seek the answer

You trust science more that you trust yourself, Belz. You shouldn't do that **** to yourself, man.

Nick

Considering the different number of things people believe when they "look inside", I'd rather NOT trust my own answers.

Are you going to ignore this post, too ?

 

[Belz...]

Belz, man, you need to learn to trust yourself. Really! I mean it. It's a life necessity. Don't believe **** about yourself. Don't take that position.

Listen to me, man, because you need guidance.

You're starting to sound like a religious nut. Calm down and start thinking rationally.

Chances are, if I did "look inside", assuming I have any idea what that's supposed to mean, I'd come up with a different answer than yours. THEN what would you say ?

Empirical science is great, but there are things that only you can see.

Yes, imaginary stuff. I do it all the time.

That's the nature of reality. There's stuff you can see and others can see and there's stuff only you can see.

Except, real things can be seen by everybody.

It's important to YOU. It's who you are. Don't dismiss it because if you do you dismiss yourself.

HAH! Appeal to emotion. You're just chock-full of fallacies, aren't you ?

Take a position. I don't care if you totally oppose what I write. I don't really give a **** about Alchemy, man. I'm a therapist.

I will never consult you. You're the kind of quack that's bound to ask use hypnosis to discover that I was sexually abused by satanic cults as a child and repressed the memories...

he thing is...take a position. For yourself. Don't just follow the herd. Stand up and ****ing shout it out.

No, I won't ignore centuries of science just because you can't let go of your silly beliefs. I can think on my own, thank you, but I also know when to trust other people's findings.

 

[Belz...]

Of course we trust science more than we trust ourselves! Anyone who claims even the most fleeting contact with psychology should understand why this is so.

If you "just sit down and watch them", you are thinking about your thoughts, which rather proves the point we are making.

Both those posts bear repeating.

 

[Nick227]

That is thinking about thoughts.

You cannot articulate anything about the experience of observing thoughts, for sure, for all such articulations are simply more thoughts. However, thoughts do change as a result of the experience. You do develop a sense of the ephemerality of thinking, and those things which are constructed from thinking.

It never went away. You just weren't thinking about it.

Well, who knows?

Not if you want to actually get anything done, you can't.

Absolutely! Though, of course, it is only the presence of identified thought that convinces the mind to stir back into action.

No, it's an epistemology.

Hmm, I definitely prefer "mindset." You strap it on and... "OK, this is me, these are my borders and that is now over there. Let's work!"

Indeed. Objectivity rests on an assumption, sure, but it works.

Yes, it's functional. And you can make the world a nicer or worse place with it. It does only, however, operate within its own parameters.

Ah. I take it then that you are dead, and base your objections to objectivity on this fact?

My only objection to objectivity is that some people forget it's just a mindset. I have nothing against objectivity itself at all. I work in management. I wouldn't get very much done without objectivity.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

If you "just sit down and watch them", you are thinking about your thoughts, which rather proves the point we are making.

Yes, all human conscious action is created by thoughts and the phenomenon of identification with thought. Including of course all my descriptions! It is not that they are necessarily accurate or meaningful, merely that this is the pattern that the identification takes.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Of course we trust science more than we trust ourselves! Anyone who claims even the most fleeting contact with psychology should understand why this is so.

You've had a bad experience with psychology?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Considering the different number of things people believe when they "look inside", I'd rather NOT trust my own answers.

Are you going to ignore this post, too ?

You have to trust your own answers because....actually they're not your own answers. They're just the patterns of identification creating actions from thoughts. If you try and sit in denial of identification you never get to discover who you are.

Thoughts and beliefs only represent your identity for a transitory period. They serve to lead you into a deeper state of awareness and selfhood but you do have to pick them up and follow them to get there.

Nick

 

[chipmunk stew]

Hi CS,

I have come to understand that objectivity is simply a mindset placed over that which is a priori real.

In case you missed it all the times it's been stated before, it's not simply a mindset. It's a tentative assumption about that which is a priori real--an assumption that is tested every day.

I consider this of immense personal value, because without it I would be simply trapped in a machine, believing in personal free will, yet never enjoying the fact that it does not exist!

Hold that thought.*

It has also shown me the value of subjective science. Objective science can study only in an arena accessible to others, or to machinery. Thus the inner life of the mind is largely inaccessible to objective scrutiny, because only you experience it. It has progressively dropped off the scientific map ever since The Royal Society, an organisation created by Alchemists, came into being.

The Royal Society consisted mainly of spoiled nobles with a lot of time on their hands. To be sure, they counted a few luminaries among their ranks, and a few of their meandering explorations eventually developed into true sciences, but for the most part they were just making it up as they went along and their tinkering went nowhere. Along the way, some of them parted ways with the experimentally-based alchemists and branched off into cult-like mysticism steeped in magical thinking.

Of course, neuroscience is exciting and can make some inroads, but it is not like Alchemy. Compared to Alchemy, neuroscience is a long way behind on the starting blocks. The Alchemists understood that he who could control the force of identification, the force they termed the Great Magical Agent, could control the whole of human destiny. If you can apply the GMA to only certain strands of thought, then only those will be acted on by the mind. You have complete power to control destiny.

*Consciously identifying with/acting upon only certain strands of thought sounds an awful lot like free will to me. I fail to see how this translates into control of the whole of human destiny.

On what do you base your agreement with these alchemists who claimed they could control human destiny? You've been suggesting that it's agreement based on experience. Does this mean you've been controlling human destiny? What have you accomplished with this power?

For sure, in perhaps 10 or 20 years the neuroscientists may get there. I read exciting things about regulating glutamate transmission, GABA inhibition and how the mind's reward and seeking circuitry, its dopamine system, is affected by these things. It's close, but I don't quite make out the cigar yet. I hope they get there, but if it happens they will still be some 2,000 years behind Hermes Trismegistos.

I don't think scientists will ever find the Great Magical Agent, unfortunately. Of course, neither did Hermes Trismegistos, unless perhaps the Great Magical Agent is code for a hallucinogen of some sort.

When you ask "what's the value" I have to ask you - Do you realise that the values of objectivity apply only within that mindset? It is a tool you can use to make nice things.

Wow. You dismiss democracy, medicine, forensics, human rights, clean water, safe sex, climate forecasting, modern cosmology, and the one and a half zillion other things objectivity has made possible, as "nice things"? Yeah. I'd say they're pretty nice.

It is also of Alchemical value. But it is just a mindset. If you never slacken off the wingnuts, you never get to see this. You never get to find out who you are.

Nick

No person is perfectly objective all the time. In fact, most people are rarely perfectly objective. That's why when we're pursuing the truth of a thing, we use methods designed to mitigate our personal subjectivity.

In my daily life, I spend a lot of time imagining things, being creative, enjoying art, music, books, movies, viewing myself and my life through metaphorical lenses, telling my wife how much I love her in poetical, narrative terms, etc. This makes up the bulk of my day. I turn to objective critical analysis when questions of fact or accuracy arise, which is often but not constant by any means.

In short, I only "tighten the wingnuts" when I need to, to ensure that my brain doesn't fall out.

 

[twinstead]

In short, I only "tighten the wingnuts" when I need to, to ensure that my brain doesn't fall out.

Oh, I hate when that happens.

 

[chipmunk stew]

You've had a bad experience with psychology?

Nick

Psychologists have demonstrated that a human mind working on its own, unaided by the tools developed over centuries by people probing the mysteries of the universe, is highly irrational and has an extremely poor track record of grokking the truth.

 

[chipmunk stew]

My only objection to objectivity is that some people forget it's just a mindset.

My only objection is that too many people think that it's just a mindset (religious fundamentalists, superstitionists, relative realityists, new age spiritualists of various stripes, etc.) If they realized that it's an assumption that they themselves test every day, we'd have a lot less woo in the world.

 

[Hokulele]

Did Nick227 really bring alchemy into this? The worst part of alchemy was the paranoid secrecy they displayed when documenting their work. The Emerald Tablet accredited to Hermes Trismegistos is a perfect example of an almost completely nonsensical piece of writing that can be interpreted six ways to Sunday, even when many of those interpretations directly contradict each other. Science works best when others can reliably duplicate each others' work, criticizing and refining where necessary. This is almost the antithesis of how alchemists functioned.

 

[PixyMisa]

You've had a bad experience with psychology?

Not at all. Psychology is a fascinating subject that for the first time truly explores and explains the human condition.

It also tells us, with great depth and precision, why we should trust science over our own perceptions.

You claim to be a therapist. If you don't understand just how fallible the human mind is, and how psychological studies, scientific studies, have explored the mechanisms behind this fallability, then you are profoundly unqualified for your job.

 

[PixyMisa]

You cannot articulate anything about the experience of observing thoughts

Yes you can. You just did!

for sure, for all such articulations are simply more thoughts.

Well, of course they are. If they weren't thoughts, then you wouldn't be able to articulate them.

However, thoughts do change as a result of the experience. You do develop a sense of the ephemerality of thinking, and those things which are constructed from thinking.

Once again, this is thinking about thinking.

Well, who knows?

Everyone but you, apparently.

Absolutely! Though, of course, it is only the presence of identified thought that convinces the mind to stir back into action.

No.

Hmm, I definitely prefer "mindset."

I don't care what you prefer. It's an epistemology.

You strap it on and... "OK, this is me, these are my borders and that is now over there. Let's work!"

Strawman.

Yes, it's functional. And you can make the world a nicer or worse place with it. It does only, however, operate within its own parameters.

Its parameters being everything we can observe, I don't see that this is a problem.

chipmunk stew gave a list of just a few things that we owe to objectivity. I'd like to add a couple more: Food. Water. Clothing. Birth.

My only objection to objectivity is that some people forget it's just a mindset.

It's a testable epistemological assumption.