Fallacies of modern thinking

[emile]

hopefully all is well with christian, whose response i was waiting for before posting any thing further.

gordon, you mention indirectly defined being and the applicability or not of physical theory to social sciences theory.

to me this ties directly to the limitations of language.

for example, the common spherical hostspace dynamic on the surface of the earth is a relational spatial dynamic that transpires in the continuing present. as poincaré made clear, to inquire into the dynamics that go on in this space (any dynamics, social or atmospheric currents etc.) we can impose absolute space and time, ... and/or we can impose spherical space (relative spacetime). there is no right or wrong here according to poincaré, there is simply convenience relative to the nature of our inquiry.

our cultural default is inevitably to impose absolute space and absolute time since this forces our view of space to be a container of emptiness (space as a non-participant) and enables us to conceive of motion purely in the one-sided terms of entities capable of behaviour in-their-own-right.

it is in this 'most simple of all' arbitrary space-framings that we can say, for example, that 'the US does such and such' and that 'Syria does such and such' because the euclidian space framing detaches the individual entity from the spatial dynamic.

but, as biologists such as stephen jay gould pointed out, ... this may be ok for studying 'transactions' amongst organisms as if they were independently existing things operating in empty, non-participating space, but if we want to understand their ontological developmen relative to the evolving hostspace dynamic , ... then we must accept that the 'hitting' (assertive accomplishment) of the individual and the 'fielding' (accommodating quality of the hostspace dynamic) mutual define one another.

from our experience in social dynamics, we know full well that the hostspace dynamic can selectively amplify or attenuate the assertive accomplishment of the individual (organism, person, nation) and that it is not wise to take anyone's resumé literally, since it represents a one-sided inventory of assertive accomplishments and we know that when the king is included in a crowd dynamic (hostspace dynamic), the crowd accommodates his asserting in the manner of the red sea opening for moses. at least in his own country.

what we are doing, when we visualize dynamics in terms of a mutually defining of the assertings of an entity and the accommodating of the hostspace dynamic the entity is inclusionally situated within, ... is imposing the spherical space of relativity where space is a participant in the physical phenomena and where everything transpires in the continuing present.

the entity, in this case, has no pure being of its own. it is like the hurricane, indirectly defined by how space accommodates its attempts to actualize its assertive potentials.

but do those assertive potentials 'exist' in-their-own-right prior to the attempt to actualize them? it is a moot point, like the sound of one hand clapping since everything is continuing in relative motion and there is no way to express the assertive potentials in a hostspace that is continuously transforming. we can no longer say that 'the US does such and such' since whatever the US does is mutually defined by the shaping backpressure of the global hostspace dynamic the US is included in. another way to say this is that' there is no such thing as 'the US' in terms of an entity that has 'being' in-its-own-right. it is an abstraction that lives in the minds of people, but not in reality. there are no real physical boundaries to the US and if a few states dropped out (a few millions of people) and a few are added, this abstract ideal of 'the US' persists.

around the globe, the hostspace dynamic that all nations are included in is periodically overprinted with a new jigsaw puzzle like configuration showing revised national boundaries, but all the observer on mars sees is the evolving currents and flow-patterns of the global social dynamic.. he will have noted that the coherent feature in mid-europe known as 'germany' manifested a strong assertive outwelling in the 1939 to 1943 evolutionary phase (whatever martians might call it) due to the hostspace being very accommodative, ... but in 1944 through 1945, the same or even greater effort to actualize its assertive potentials failed to accomplish the same 'results' as had previously been achieved, due to transformation in the accommodative quality of the hostspace dynamic.

evidently, this assertive entity known as 'germany' was undergoing continuous redefinition through the accommodating quality of the hostspace it was inclusionally situated within. the assertive action and the accommodative reception were mutually defining, as stephen jay gould would say is the case in the evolutionary dynamics of biological organisms.

as poincare noted, we impose euclidian space framing on our mental models because it is the simplest possible space-framing, and it allows us to conceive of individual organisms or individual people or nations as having 'being' in-their-own-right, and having the capability to behave in-their-own-right. but if we upgrade our space-framing to spherical space, which we are fully entitled to (we cannot say that one is more correct than the other, only that one may be more convenient than another), ... then the organism, person, nation, thing, is no longer capable of independent being and behaving in-its-own-right because its asserting and the accommodating of the hostspace dynamic it is situated within mutually define one another ('hitting' and 'fielding' mutually define one another)

spherical space is the space-framing of indigenous tradition as captured in the four directions of flow of the medicine wheel and the notion of sustaining continuous balance and rejuvenation at the confluence of the flows (at the center hub of the wheel).

so, our language (though not the native languages) embodies within it the euclidian space framing assumption, the simplest of all geometric assumptions of space. this allows us to think in the one-sided terms of entities (organisms, persons, nations) behaving in-their-own-right (space as a non-participant in physical phenomena) and so we write up 'their resumés on that basis, ignoring the fact that the assertive behaviour of the individual and the accommodating quality of the hostspace dynamic he is included in are mutually defining.

in terms of social sciences impact, ... those with 'good resumés' are happy to ignore the fact that their assertive accomplishments are amplified when they are situated within a hostspace dynamic influenced by their cronies, but those whose assertive accomplishments are attenuated when they are situated within a hostspace dynamic influenced by a crony club they are excluded from, ... there are cries that the resumés are fixed and falsified.

so language is embodied with euclidian space framing assumption (as marshall mcluhan went on about with few people 'getting it') and it oversimplifies the view of dynamics. the false/deceptive modeling of behaviour in one-sided assertive terms gives rise to the false/deceptive darwinian notion of 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest' which a growing minority of biologists are seeing through.

our acculturated notions of space go beyond the inquiry of the physicist to influence the models of the social sciences and indeed the psyches of modern man.

[claireatcthisspace]

Emile,

This is an -exceptionally- interesting post that I will reply to soon, in conjuction with the other one (now that I have installed Voice Wizard or Viavoice a few hours ago on my pc and to my greatest happiness (well, that it can help me type out my thoughts more quickly than do I!) as the latest on what it thinks is my voicing out "Quantum Teleportation" is.

7 examples are as follows:

Quantum Teller Porto Asian, Teller deportation, quantum Teller quotation, quantum Teller Porto Asian, cotton to deportation, Quantum to importation, club attain (glad I am not writing a thesis on physics)

Sid In The Way-Space.

There once was a man called Sid
No matter wich way you looked for him, he hid.

Hopefully it will learn words like "Quantum Teleportation"!!! Looks like I am going to have fun with Viavoice!

Claire

[claireatcthisspace]

Hello emile,

I need more time to think about a reasonable reply to your interesting post.

Claire

[Dancer]

To all on the subject of 'The Fallacies on Modern thinking'

I like to make clear what I was trying to state early on in this debate, in that although I agree with Chris, I don't agree with his approach, below is a passage from David Deutsch article which I believe sums up my position more clearly.

[They are mistaken. We (the likes of Xenophanes, Socrates, William Godwin, Karl Popper and TCS supporters) are rationalists as well as fallibilists. We believe that it possible for human beings, through conjecture, reason and criticism, to come to know and understand truths about the world, including truths about the human condition and about specific people, and including truths about matters that are not experimentally testable. We do not believe that we possess the final truth about any of these matters, but we do believe that our successive theories can become objectively truer – with more true implications and fewer errors. But because we are fallible, it is not possible for us to know which of the ideas that we believe to be true are in fact true, or in which cases we are right when we believe that we have obtained a truer theory than we had before. History is full of examples of ideas – the flatness of the Earth, Newton's laws, the subservience of women – that were once the epitome of certain, unquestionable truth but are in fact severe errors. We hold it to be true that many of the ideas that we now believe to be true, including some of those that we believe most strongly to be true, are in fact riddled with errors.
That is why the frameworks that we endorse for science, politics and interpersonal relationships are fundamentally different from those of non-fallibilist world views. Our frameworks – protocols, rules, maxims etc. – are all about what to do in the face of opposing theories, ideas, values etc., which may be true, given that we start from the premise that our own may be mistaken. Other frameworks are all about how to obtain ‘justified’ (revealed, certain, etc.) knowledge – i.e. theories for which you can know in advance that anyone who contradicts you will be wrong – and how to behave when you have it. The former is invariably a fraud; the latter a recipe for tyranny.
Those who think that believing that one may be mistaken, even when one is sure that one’s theory is true, is self-contradictory, are mistaken. They have not understood the fallibilist conception of objective knowledge. As Sir Peter Medawar said in Advice to a Young Scientist:
I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.
In the fallibilist scheme of things, arguments take the form of criticisms of theories that contradict the one that is being argued for. In science, for instance, an experimental test may establish that a range of previously plausible theories is false because their predictions were not borne out, but it cannot prove that any theory is true, because it may yet make many false predictions in some – or even all – other situations. Quite generally, you cannot hope to find evidence that some future criticism, of a form you do not yet know, will not reveal a fatal flaw in your favorite theory.
There is often a moment of understanding, when you assimilate an explanation of why something is so, rather than merely that it is so. And this often comes along with an increased conviction that the idea is true. But remember the Medawar quote. Even when you get this conviction, it does not mean that the idea is true. If anything, it would mean that you should be especially careful to criticise the idea.]

I hope Chris that you can see what I was getting at from this explicitly written paragraph, as no Hostility was implied.

Best wishes
Gordon.

[emile]

if i may gain your indulgence to interject here, ... i believe that christian made a good opening point, claiming that there were two 'fallacious beliefs' in our society that were the source of serious social dissonance that threatened the persistence of (persisting health and harmony of) the human race;

- belief in the Reality of what is only phenomenal
- belief in the existence of the Ego

christian maintained that we have made ourselves slaves to our ego-oriented thoughts, and that we must liberate ourselves from our thoughts.

meanwhile, your discussion, gordon, seems to focus on the nature of theory, and in particular the 'fallibilist approach' and the 'non-fallibilist approach', which never quite gets to where christian was coming from.

for example, there is the problem of 'incompleteness' with fallibilist scientific thought. newton recognized this upfront in his 'principia',... saying that his theory did not go so far as to explain the dynamics of harmonious community that characterized celestial dynamics. his principles, while DESCRIBING the motion of the planets etc. in no way explained how they came together in the way they had, nor by what mechanism they may possibly recede from one another. in his summarizing scholium, newton explained that his worldly behaviour was not only guided by the fallibility theory of science, but also by the religious notion of a God;

"but it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions ... this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

the question is generally raised, then, ... how do we moderate our behaviour when we know that our scientific fallibility theory is intrinsically incomplete? ... and particularly so with respect to 'community dynamics', the 'harmonies of the world' as kepler had termed it.

the emergent harmonies in nature are fully manifest but our scientific theories have not yet evolved to being able to comprend their emergent origins, .... thus there is a case for 'letting go' of our scientific theory guided behaviour so as not to 'squelch' the emergence of those sustainable community harmonies that science has not yet 'gotten around to explaining'.

even in traffic flow situations, the individual must let go of his rational plan based behavioural guidance so as to allow the sustaining of harmony in the collective flow-dynamic. the wild geese can 'feel' the resonance that is emergence as they beat their wings in close proximity and they allow themselves, as individuals, to be guided in their behaviour by the sustaining of the resonances that they are co-creating.

i would say that this is going beyond a belief in the reality of what is only VISIBLY phenomenal and it is certainly going beyond belief in the existence of the ego, since we give ourselves up to a community harmony whose origins transcend the individual self (a power beyond that of the self-centered ego).

many people today, not only cling to self-centered individualism, ... they accept as truth only that which is manifestly visible. quantum nonlocality is not visible nor is the simultaneous mutual conditioning of space and matter as in relativity and Mach's principle and it erodes the absolutism of the notion of the existence of 'the self' as an independent entity in-its-own-right.

of course science has not yet dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's on these theories, but they nevertheless point to justifications for believing in the truth of what we cannot visually perceive and that which transcends our ego-self.

a non insignificant minority of scientists (the concentration being greater amongst the true innovators in science) would say that there is much in quantum theory and relativity akin the traditional spiritual beliefs of the east (the yin/yang of buddhism, taoism, hinduism) and of the native american peoples traditions, f david peat, who has sponsored this forum, being amongst them.

so, historically, we had newton who allowed his behaviour to be guided by science to a smaller degree, and by God to a larger degree, ... and as time has gone by, the modern day newton uses science for increasingly more of his guidance and God for increasing less, ... since the fallibility-based science is obviously and admittedly putting out 'incomplete' understandings of the world, and we have to 'make up the difference' elsewhere.

today, the world is split into three classes of people, based on where they take their guidance from; (a) the scientific literalists who allow their behaviour to be almost fully guided by incomplete linear scientific theory, (b) the scientific intuitionists who allow their behaviour to be partly guided by scientific theory as far as it has been developed to date, but who moderate their behaviour based on the way in which scientific theory is incomplete. for example, they do not support carte blanche genetic engineering because they realize, like the late stephen jay gould, that we do not understand the manner in which the external world engages with the internal world, ... the future impact on the collective 'gene pool' etc., and (c) the religious fundamentalist who allow their behaviour to be over-ridingly guided by the revealed truths of scriptures as interpreted by themselves or by their priests or mullahs etc.

[emile]

continuation;

so, historically, we had newton who allowed his behaviour to be guided by science to a smaller degree, and by God to a larger degree, ... and as time has gone by, the modern day newton uses science for increasingly more of his guidance and God for increasing less, ... since the fallibility-based science is obviously and admittedly putting out 'incomplete' understandings of the world, and we have to 'make up the difference' elsewhere.

today, the world is split into three classes of people, based on where they take their guidance from; (a) the scientific literalists who allow their behaviour to be almost fully guided by incomplete linear scientific theory, (b) the scientific intuitionists who allow their behaviour to be partly guided by scientific theory as far as it has been developed to date, but who moderate their behaviour based on the way in which scientific theory is incomplete. for example, they do not support carte blanche genetic engineering because they realize, like the late stephen jay gould, that we do not understand the manner in which the external world engages with the internal world, ... the future impact on the collective 'gene pool' etc., and (c) the religious fundamentalist who allow their behaviour to be over-ridingly guided by the revealed truths of scriptures as interpreted by themselves or by their priests or mullahs etc.

christian's point was that the (a) category of behavioural guidance was currently dominant in our common global livingspace dynamic; i.e. he says;

"The prevailing paradigm today is Darwinian-Newtonian-Capitalism. It is crucial to realise that Capitalism is not just an economic system – it is a theory of reality, a metaphysics, a religion. Sadly, people today derive something they call “life” from the context of Capitalism. The two most important principles of Capitalism are: property and ego-interest, both in direct opposition with the Spiritual Truth that property is transitory therefore illusory and that human Ego, which is selfishly seeking its own self-aggrandisement, does not have any reality as such, for only the Self which is ever-flowing and beyond form is real."

who can deny this? christian's statement is pretty much consistent with (or not inconsistent with) relativity and quantum theory.

so, the argument was never really as much about the 'fallacy of modern theories' as it was about the domination of 'scientific literalism' wherein we institutionalize some of the simplest of scientific theories within the global social dynamic. as david bohm said, because what results from the use of these incomplete theories is not what we predict to be the result, 'incoherence' results (the gap between what we get and what we predict). for example, as henri poincare points out, we infuse geometry and mathematics with the notion of an 'object' which is an a priori prejudice that cannot be dealt with by the axioms and tools of geometry and mathematics, .. so that when we objectify 'terrorists' and actuate a plan to 'eliminate terrorists' by reducing their number to zero, ... we may instead be inducing the emergence of ever greater numbers of terrorists by our eliminatory actions. this would be an example of 'incoherent behaviour' based on a (linear) scientific/rational model.

certainly this example involves 'seeing is believing' since we can see who the terrorists are and we can eliminate them on this basis (but we can't see who are the potential ones to become terrorists because this is like the 'self-organized criticality of per bak, ... where the conversion of non-terrorist to terrorist requires some triggering that has not yet come to pass and which may not come to pass). also, our ego, the belief that we are a self-centered geometric object in-our-own-right, a prejudice of geometry and mathematics, insists that the terrorism that we are looking out at, can't possibly have any interdepedence with our own behaviour, ... a notion that is already contradicted by quantum non-locality and the relativity of motion.

so whether or not christian is coming from the infallibility of revealed religious truths or not, is a moot point. the fact is, that we have enough slack within the fallible sciences to suggest that we, as scientifically minded people, are contradicting our own views. as johannes kepler noted, this a problem associated with education;

"As regards the academies, they are established in order to regulate the studies of the pupils and are concerned not to have the program of teaching change very often: in such places, because it is a question of the progress of the students, it frequently happens that the things which have to be chosen are not those which are most true but those which are most easy. And by that division in things which makes different people form different judgements, it so happens that certain people are in error contrary to their own opinion."

so, as it turns out, the scientific community has a problem with staying current with its own findings, and continues to institutionalize, within the social dynamic, theory that has since been recognized as woefully incomplete, to the point of exposing us to the infusing of major 'incoherencies' of behaviour into the global social dynamic.

and just as newton moderated his behaviour on the basis of an intuited 'ordering principle' (in his case the Christian God), there are many cases where people intuit an ordering influence (the Tao etc.) which they feel is necessary to moderate the incompleteness of the slowly evolving fallibility theories of science, so as to avoid incoherent behaviour, particularly in matters of resonances in community dynamics where, as newton pointed out, his principles fell seriously short of providing any enlightening understanding.

scientists have intuition too, and as poincare said, logic would be barren without our infusing it with intuition, ... so christian's complaint could also be framed in terms of the scientific community allowing its intuition to atrophy, insofar as using it to guide one's behaviour in a way that avoids infusing incoherence into the social dynamic.

little of this is brought forth by a simplistic argument as to whether the 'fallibility' approach is superior to the 'infallibility' approach, or vice versa.

[Christian B]

Emile: "so whether or not Christian is coming from the infallibility of revealed religious truths or not, is a moot point"

Well here is another blow to intellectualism. Main stream science believes that human beings are on the top of evolutionary ladder. This is not true. There are beings which are far more evolved than humans. It is those beings that provided some of the revealed religious truths. We have to learn to live in the world and be aware that we are not on the top, that we are not the rulers of "the universe".

At present modern thought assumes that human intellect is king. In truth human intellect is not king either within nor without. Within it is the heart really that rules, for intellect has no meaning without feelings or intuition. And without, human intellect is not the king, because there greater super-human and non-human intelligences.

So we live in a very deluded world, a fabricated universe in which human intellect is elevated into God, and almost everything is reduced to Capitalism, technology and a science fiction vision of the world where human beings are "liberals" having everything for themselves and accountable to none. I think that the modern world is a bubble of illusion and self-deceit, which this planet will not be able to sustain for too long.

Academic intellectuals are not the ones who can crack the Matrix - they are a firm part of it. They believe in "theories" and that Nature has to comply to academic expectations. Academic intellectualism is like a semi-fossilized mutant, it has no life in itself, it is a parroting school for training of new parrot candidates. Intellectualism simply is not the way forward. Activism is the way - doing things with heart and love and using intellect only as an instrument, not as the goal.

[Dancer]

[C]
Emile: "so whether or not Christian is coming from the infallibility of revealed religious truths or not, is a moot point"

Well here is another blow to intellectualism. Main stream science believes that human beings are on the top of evolutionary ladder.

[Gordon]
Well perhaps not all science.

[C]
This is not true. There are beings which are far more evolved than humans. It is those beings that provided some of the revealed religious truths. We have to learn to live in the world and be aware that we are not on the top, that we are not the rulers of "the universe".

[Gordon]
Interesting what creature are these, as for being the absolute rulers of the univerese I think most of science would agree with you there.
Unlike the Business community who do believe that they have absloute control.

[C]
At present modern thought assumes that human intellect is king. In truth human intellect is not king either within nor without. Within it is the heart really that rules, for intellect has no meaning without feelings or intuition. And without, human intellect is not the king, because there greater super-human and non-human intelligences.

[Gordon]
Although in princple I also assume that Humans are limited, I don't know how far that limit actuality extends. The problem I have with your statement is you absloute conviction which does not seem to take into account the fact that you come to this hypothesis from the Human frame of reference it self.

[C]
So we live in a very deluded world, a fabricated universe in which human intellect is elevated into God, and almost everything is reduced to Capitalism, technology and a science fiction vision of the world where human beings are "liberals" having everything for themselves and accountable to none.

[Gordon]
I agree, however tech-sci as a thing in it's self should not be confused with Capitalism and it's agenda. As for sic-fi there is some crap stuff that is wet, however there is a lot of sci-fi out there that is good and lot different from the stuff that gets filmed or poplurized.



[C]
I think that the modern world is a bubble of illusion and self-deceit, which this planet will not be able to sustain for too long.

[Gordon]
Well it depends on whether we can change in enough time, while I am dishearted with the lack of real progress in humainty, I am hopeful that we can change, getting away from both state tryanny and Global Captial exploitation.......another world is possible!


[C]
Academic intellectuals are not the ones who can crack the Matrix - they are a firm part of it.

[Gordon]
Too true, it reminds me of what Colin wilson said about the prisoners feeling that they are part of the prison, they could not see anything else.

[C]
They believe in "theories" and that Nature has to comply to academic expectations.

[Gordon]
Well so you do?

[C]
Academic intellectualism is like a semi-fossilized mutant, it has no life in itself, it is a parroting school for training of new parrot candidates. Intellectualism simply is not the way forward. Activism is the way - doing things with heart and love and using intellect only as an instrument, not as the goal.

[Gordon]
There are many kinds of activism, I think if you look closer into David Peat gentle action within perhaps a different fram of reference you may find something else, perhaps something even David may not have had in mind?

One thing is for sure the real Left and not the left that is within the context of captial left, agree with the premise that David puts forward in that life is not Mech but Organic and therefore harder to tell how things will change and grow?

Gordon.

[Christian B]

Gordon thank you for your encouraging reply.

It is a post-modern fallacy to believe that relativism is the highest intellectual stand. That is why what I am saying is characterised as a “theory” or just other "intellectualism".

This type of thinking is derived from a fancy assumptions that the we live in a material world of which the human being is the most evolved, therefore humanity can invent any reality and claim to be the truth.

But the facts of Nature point out that this is not the case and that the human being is only a stage in the evolution of consciousness. Maybe we can compare post-modern intellectualism with adolescence which sees maturity as a "theory". Post-modernism is essentially materialism - it assumes supremacy of human intellect over the whole nature. This is evident in a dogmatic denial of the main-stream science that there are might be UFO aliens present on Earth. Anything that is more intelligent than humans is denied existence, even if it has nothing to do with religion or parapsychology.

What it has been revealed through various religious and mystical traditions is that there is higher order of beings and that we humans are a part of a grander scheme of things. Humanity has decided to turn its back on this truth and fall into a solipsistic denial - creating various theories to explain the reality of its illusory creation.

How can I know this when I am also a part of the post-modern materialistic Matrix? Well am I? If the intelligences I mentioned exist then it is possible to get in touch with them. I’ve have been lucky enough, and I have directly and indirectly been touched by them. This gives me the power of detachment from solipsistic, isolationist paradigm of the post-modern world. I am not the only one. Many people had these experiences, some had trough Near Death Experiences the same realisations, or meditation, or just strong intuition.

What if humanity is an organ in a bigger conscious body? This idea is not attractive in a society which favours selfish individualism and cultural relativism, is it? But there is also unselfish individualism which we need to learn and explore. Unselfish individualism would be when one is using one’s uniqueness and talents to better the world.

[Dancer]

Gordon thank you for your encouraging reply.


It is a post-modern fallacy to believe that relativism is the highest intellectual stand. That is why what I am saying is characterised as a “theory” or just other "intellectualism".

[Gordon] This is where I agree, relativism is a problem, Bohm in fact hinted so towars this problem however he expressed in that no side should hold fixed assumption only to merely compromise. The problem however when we try this within the context of aprior dogma. Bohm I believe was misunderstood and taken for relativism.

[Chris]
This type of thinking is derived from a fancy assumptions that the we live in a material world of which the human being is the most evolved, therefore humanity can invent any reality and claim to be the truth.

[Gordon]
Yes and no, I think you must be careful, I can see where you coming from and you may be right, however the term of 'value' is also part of this social construction, and thefore may have little reality when in realtion to actual reality as apposed to human fallacy?

[Chris]
But the facts of Nature point out that this is not the case and that the human being is only a stage in the evolution of consciousness.

[Gordon]
Ah now this is not about value, yes I think this clears up what you are saying, yes it's possible there is nothing at present to dispute this but then there is nothing to prove it either?

[Chris]
Maybe we can compare post-modern intellectualism with adolescence which sees maturity as a "theory".

[Gordon]
Hmm interesting never thought of it that way?

[Chris]
Post-modernism is essentially materialism - it assumes supremacy of human intellect over the whole nature.

[Gordon]
Crazy but True

[Chris]
This is evident in a dogmatic denial of the main-stream science that there are might be UFO aliens present on Earth.

[Gordon]
Well I happen to agree with the 'theory' that there may not be alien life on earth at present, but your correct there is nothing to really dismiss the idea out of hand? I am not sure it's related to materialism directly?

[Chris]
Anything that is more intelligent than humans is denied existence, even if it has nothing to do with religion or parapsychology.

[Gordon]
Alot of scientist disagree with each other about this I think what you say maybe true, but alittle too generic!

[Chris]
What it has been revealed through various religious and mystical traditions is that there is higher order of beings and that we humans are a part of a grander scheme of things.

[Gordon]
Why should is be beings, why not a higher order of order or somthing that is beyond the concept of being it's self???

[Chris]
Humanity has decided to turn its back on this truth and fall into a solipsistic denial - creating various theories to explain the reality of its illusory creation.

[Gordon]
I don't know about turn it's back, but your right that we find it hard to disentangle human social constructs from any Reality beyond it.

[Chris]
How can I know this when I am also a part of the post-modern materialistic Matrix? Well am I? If the intelligences I mentioned exist then it is possible to get in touch with them. I’ve have been lucky enough, and I have directly and indirectly been touched by them. This gives me the power of detachment from solipsistic, isolationist paradigm of the post-modern world. I am not the only one. Many people had these experiences, some had trough Near Death Experiences the same realisations, or meditation, or just strong intuition.

[Gordon]
Well it's kind of the like the argument about if you are part of a V.R. program how can you test the hardware from the software? You can't?


[Chris]
What if humanity is an organ in a bigger conscious body?

[Gordon]
Whitehead would agree with that


[Chris]
This idea is not attractive in a society which favours selfish individualism and cultural relativism, is it? But there is also unselfish individualism which we need to learn and explore. Unselfish individualism would be when one is using one’s uniqueness and talents to better the world.

[Gordon]
Yes I would have some of that

[emile]

C]
Emile: "so whether or not Christian is coming from the infallibility of revealed religious truths or not, is a moot point"

Well here is another blow to intellectualism. Main stream science believes that human beings are on the top of evolutionary ladder.

[Gordon]
Well perhaps not all science.

~^~


can we take for granted the ‘objectification’ of the individual and ‘the world’ as seems to be assumed in much of this dialogue? (my point with regard to whether the ‘individual’ (object) is guided by a revealed truth (i.e. if the individual is not a ‘determinative source’ but an illusion we have imposed on nature, then we have our ladder up the wrong wall. this is not a rejection of ‘revealed truth’ but a questioning of whether there is such a thing as an ‘individual’ that serves as a unit of determinism as to what goes on the world. as poincaré noted, the notion of an ‘individual’ (object/being) is a prejudice we impose into mathematics and into our thinking, that does not ‘get tested’ by the validating operations of mathematics or by a mental modeling that we base on ‘objects’. we are not born with this objectifying view, it is acculturated.

christian, you say; “What if humanity is an organ in a bigger conscious body?” and like gordon, i ask ‘why ‘bigger conscious body’?

where is the evidence from real-life experience in support of assuming that ‘the object/being’ is the seat of consciousness? where is the evidence in support of assuming that the conscious individual object is a determinative source of ‘the condition of the world?’

this notion of ‘objects’ versus ‘flux’ has been a longstanding philosophical issue that is missing from this discussion. this comment is not to try to force it to be addressed in this particular dialogue, but to note that an exchange such as the following which ‘objectifies “world”’;

~^~

C]
I think that the modern world is a bubble of illusion and self-deceit, which this planet will not be able to sustain for too long.

[Gordon]
Well it depends on whether we can change in enough time, while I am dishearted with the lack of real progress in humainty, I am hopeful that we can change, getting away from both state tryanny and Global Captial exploitation.......another world is possible!

~^~


... assumes that the world ‘can be objectified’. our use of phrases such as ‘change in time’ and ‘lack of progress’ further establish an ‘object’ paradigm (absolute space and absolute time paradigm).

the word ‘world’ evidently means whatever we want it to mean. in your above usage, it seems to refer to the human social dynamic, ... portraying the human race as a greedy parasite living on the planet earth. apparently we can construct ‘another world’ without the involvement of the planet and the cosmos within which we are inclusionally nesting; i.e. apparently we and the planet are not included within a common evolving hostspace but represent two different ‘worlds’.

this ‘objectification’ allows us to ‘project’ our judgement on the object we have created. this implies that the object has determinative capability for being bad or good, ... i.e. ‘the current world is deceitful, tyrannical and exploitative and needs to ‘clean up its act’.

what is really intended in the critique of ‘the modern world’, i suppose, since there are many beautiful as well as ugly INTER-PERSONAL behaviours going on, ... is that there seems to be a growing preponderance of undesirable/ugly inter-personal behaviours in ‘the world’ at the moment.

what is intended by ‘another world is possible’ is less clear. do we see ‘the world’ as a collection of human-objects, individuals that ‘have consciousness, will determine’, ...? is there a ‘determinative unit’ called ‘the human individual’ we must work on in order to ‘determine’ this desired ‘better world’? are we thinking in terms of ‘beings’ and in particular ‘more evolved beings’, as constituting ‘the solution’ as you seem to indicate christian?

is ‘the being’ the thing we need to work on?, ... ‘the ‘determinative unit’? .... or is ‘inter-personal’ behaviour, that which emerges as we move under one another’s simultaneous mutual influence the source of our ‘world malaise’?

maybe the source of our problems lies in the assumption of ‘the being’ as ‘the determinative unit’? is this not the assumption in ‘the American dream’ that each of us can be whatever we want to be (no need to address the ‘collateral damage’ as we claw and bite our way, neo-darwinian style, towards OUR INDIVIDUAL desired future). is this not the assumption in western justice that the individual ‘being’ is the determinative unit since our system of justice keys to the good/bad behaviour of the individual? i.e. we reward, respect, advance, empower, celebrate individuals for THEIR achievement as if the accommodative spatial backpressure had now’t to do with it?

does the path to ‘another [more harmonious and loving] world’ depend upon the evolution of the ‘individual being’? i.e. does the problem spring from THE QUALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL? ... as you both seem to indicate?

~^~
[Chris]
This idea is not attractive in a society which favours selfish individualism and cultural relativism, is it? But there is also unselfish individualism which we need to learn and explore. Unselfish individualism would be when one is using one’s uniqueness and talents to better the world.

[Gordon]
Yes I would have some of that

~^~

the assumption here is that ‘the individual’ is the ‘determinative unit’ and that our problem is to do with the ‘quality of the individual determinative unit’.

there is another way to view the problem, however, which does not depend on the notion of ‘object-beings’, individuals that ‘have consciousness will determine’, ... a notion that does not acknowledge the participation of space (i.e. our real-life experience informs us that the actualizing of our individual assertive potentials and the accommodating back-pressure of the social hostspace are mutually defining.). only from our collective dynamic does the quality of ‘accommodation’ emerge and this accommodative quality is anything but the linear determination of multiple individuals, unselfish or otherwise. the accommodative quality of the dynamical hostspace is the gating and shaping ‘field’ that stands between the ready-to-actualize assertive potentials of the individual and the post-actualized assertive behaviour we attribute to the individual.

when multiple individuals share a common hostspace, there is a problem in the ‘accommodative’ aspect when they tenaciously pursue their own individual private agendas. the accommodative quality emerges from the manner in which the individuals move relative to one another within the common hostspace. we experience this problem with the collective dynamic becoming dis-accommodating on crowd dynamics and on the freeway. whether the individuals are pursuing a private agenda that is ‘good’ and ‘unself’ or ‘bad’ and ‘selfish’ is not the issue, ... the issue is that their behaviour is being driven by their internal purpose (whether it comes from divinely revealed truth or wherever, ... this was where my ‘moot point’ comment was coming from). in order for the accommodative quality of the hostspace to be such as to nurture the actualizing of the assertive potentials of a diverse multiplicity of individuals, the individuals must ‘relax’ their tendency to be driven by their internal purpose and allow their behaviour to be spatially-relationally guided. this mode of behaviour, born of a loving-humility, is ‘beyond good and evil’. it reflects acceptance that we are all bound up in the evolutionary dynamic, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. it reflects a faith that if we move so as to accommodate the actualizing of the authentic spirit and assertive potentials of our brothers and sisters (rather than to try to ‘legislate goodness’) then harmony will be sustained in our common living space.

so, there is an important ambiguity here with respect to the notion of ‘unselfish individualism’. if the definition is; “Unselfish individualism would be when one is using one’s uniqueness and talents to better the world.”, ... taken literally, this puts the individual back into the mode of being driven by his internal purpose, ... the purpose of using his uniqueness and talents to better the world’. but it is being driven by one’s internal purpose rather than ‘relaxing one’s private agenda’ that is the source of dis-accommodating in our common living space, ... and our modern world dynamic brings us many examples wherein different individuals and groups of individuals, their behaviour tenaciously and self-righteously driven by unselfish internal purpose infused with divinely revealed truths, ... continue to dis-accommodate the actualizing of the diverse multiplicity of assertive potentials of their brothers.

the ‘unselfish individualism’ that is needed, is not the ‘unselfishness’ of being driven by internal purpose to unselfishly do good works to ‘better the world’ (a judgemental and controlling orientation that assumes that the individual knows how his behaviour deterministically maps into ‘world betterment’), ... but instead, the ‘unselfishness’ of relaxing one’s private agenda (good and unselfish or bad and selfish) and putting one’s behaviour in the service of sustaining harmonious flow in the hostspace dynamic.

there is a question here as to whether we should look for ‘improvements’ in the world condition via ‘evolution of the individual’ or through the individual getting off his high horse, believing that the individual is the determinative unit, and thus putting the blame on a preponderance of ‘bad determinative units’ rather than accepting that the problem stems from the notion that the individual is the determinative agent.

[guvendag]

Ihink our world is going to crisis.Maltus is not right.Poppulation of
world increase but sources is less.

God created our world and gave to our serve limitless possiblities.
If human beings organize them source,I believe all human beings
will be rich enough.

But we do not see our sources.When I went to a city and all the mountains around the city was empty.
Why?The people cut all the trees.And no new trees grow.

Technology developed many sources but people do not use.

If humans control their ego and deals with technology I believe
everything will be better.

If we create a nano Socety all sources will be enough for us.

Gurbuz Guvendag
Ankara-Turkey

[Dancer]

Look you got many ways of looking at reality two of which are:

A. From Idealism to abstraction imposed on Experience 

Such as nearly all religious faiths [except Buddism] political theory [and ideologies] ecomonic, Philosophy art etc..

Such abstraction are dangerous because they are closed systems of thought and very self serving, they are right no matter what facts come their way. They demand people to be subservant and create insitution to fit their ideal over and above invidividuals and or society i.e. Churchs, Temples, The State or private corporations. The idealisist also believes that what they create is either the sum total of reality or a push back to some divine realm [Or God] of Plato.

Subtance becomes shadow and shadow becomes subtance

*************************************OR**************************************

B. From Universal Experience [or facts] to abstractions over to materialism [& beyond?] 

Now the sciences [& the philosophy of science] do form insititutions but only through partial conformity with system A, however as you can see above their method is some what different.

They is a open ended system where the real sceintist see that science comprehends the thought of the reality and not reality its self, meaning that we use abstractions. It can't not account for it's own existtence [we at least not yet?].

****************************************************************************

A. can lead to dogma in most cases

B. Lead to a working hypothesis

And in a changing environment the later might be better!