What do you think of Christopher Langan and the CTMU? I was quite happy with my reductionist, mechanist view of nature and its inherent meaninglessness. Now I'm starting to think there is a divine power in nature and that my soul is incongruous with grace. I'm worried my soul is in danger of interdiction by teleological mechanisms built into the structure of the universe.
What do you think of Christopher Langan and the CTMU? I was quite happy with my reductionist...
Christopher Cox
Julian Fisher
Absolute trash
Tyler Walker
Easton Myers
He needed to actually read some philosophy of mind and give better defenses.
Jordan Parker
If reason could provide a proof for God then faith and religion would be meaningless
William Gray
I think defeasible reasoning in combination with non-logical positivist interpretations of the certain areas in science can point to the Absolute, just maybe.
Jackson Sullivan
Oh I agree, pic related. The actual intuition of the Absolute still requires a leap of faith, the process of self-realization is a personal one that I don't think science can reveal. Science can show structure and patterns, but the meaning placed on those structures and patterns can only be supplied internally.
Michael Martin
The experience of the Absolute could be dismissed as aberration of perceptual mechanisms based off what you're saying.
Tyler Hall
>To recap: this "theory" of his has three problems, each of which is individually enough to discard it; with the three of them together, it's a virtual masterpiece of crap.
>1: The "theory" consists mostly of word-games - arguing about the meanings of words like "universe" and "inclusion", without actually explaining anything about how the universe works. It's a theory with no predictive or descriptive value.
>2: The "theory" is defined by creating a new version of set theory, whose axioms are never stated, and whose specific goal guarantees that it will be an unsound theory. Unsound mathematical theories are useless: every possible statement is provable in an unsound theory.
>3: The author doesn't understand the difference between syntax and semantics, between objects and models, or between statements and facts - and because of that, the basic statements in his theory are utterly meaningless.
Absolutely brutal takedown.
Colton Baker
The experience of "Enlightenment" could be just a perceptual aberration, it could be a correct interpretation of reality. Given that I'm not really sure whether it's an illusion or real, I will choose the truth that makes me as strong as possible, that helps me achieve my goals, and that has the most utility for me.
Jonathan Wilson
And what makes this internet critic more authoritative than Langan? Nothing, so picking either side is a matter of taste. But you can be sure he doesn't have a higher I.Q than Langan so take that as you will.
Mason Roberts
>And what makes this internet critic more authoritative than Langan? Nothing, so picking either side is a matter of taste.
Yes, except for the whole "actually presenting arguments for your point of view" part, I guess the two are practically the same
Joshua Garcia
>religious memes
Luke Walker
The illusion is real, but as the illusion dissipates there is literally nothing, which is very tragic to reflect on. That's the honest conclusion I have come to in my life.
Also, if even if the illusion is real, it doesn't need to tie into an overall ethos. Just being honest.
Ayden Williams
this citation is forged
Robert Diaz
>MUH IQ
Smart people can believe stupid and insane things too user, it's not just you little people who fall prey to such follies. Langam is playing a word game, it's like he's learned nothing from science and philosophy re: the futility of word games.
Josiah Ross
so could literally everything else. there is no guarantee that the world we perceive is anything but a madman's daydream
Evan Harris
>Smart people can believe stupid and insane things too user,
Not only that, but smart people are actually MORE likely to believe stupid and insane things, or at least invest more time in them.
Caleb Evans
Exactly. Smart people do everything better, including fooling themselves.
Logan Thomas
Are they also better at knowing when they are fooling themselves?
Daniel Ward
I don't speak German, but Google Translate seems to suggest it was found in one of his biographies. If you have further evidence it's forged I'd like to see it, I don't intend to spread falsehoods.
>there is literally nothing
Is there? How do you know? You've been fed a materialist assumption your entire life. Do you have reason to believe it over the alternatives?
>even if the illusion is real, it doesn't need to tie into an overall ethos
Once someone makes the leap of faith then one can decide what religion to follow. Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Paganism, all religions are based on the same core principles, the difference is what one's goal is upon realizing the Absolute. While a Buddhist would seek to remove all desires, a Christian might seek to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, and so on with the other faiths and their various goals. From my perspective some religions are clearly superior, but it depends on the values one holds. Some religions I would be willing to die for, others not so much.
Grayson Garcia
>Is there? How do you know? You've been fed a materialist assumption your entire life. Do you have reason to believe it over the alternatives?
I am my explicit memory. If my explicit memory goes, I go. Death will invariably involve the loss of explicit memory, or at least the connection to it. Consciousness is just attention to explicit memory.
>Once someone makes the leap of faith then one can decide what religion to follow.
Perennialism is ill-founded. Each religion there is based on different assumptions and goals.
Jacob Clark
>I am my explicit memory. If my explicit memory goes, I go.
So people without explicit memory cease to exist, from their perspective? How do you know? Have you experienced the loss of your explicit memory? If someone loses part of their explicit memory, are they less of a person? Why can't I exist as awareness without memory?
>Death will invariably involve the loss of explicit memory, or at least the connection to it
Perhaps, but that would imply the brain is the location in which memory is stored. Do you know this with certainty? Just because a set of neurons fire when a memory is recalled, that does not imply that the memory was stored within the connection. Maybe when those neurons oscillate at certain frequencies it's like dialing in to a radio station. Perhaps the brain is merely a receiver for consciousness.
You're still making the materialist assumption here. If you are certain that materialism is correct no amount of doubt I try to inject will change your mind.
>Perennialism
Essentially all religions assume that man is spiritual in some sense. I agree that for anything beyond that different religions have different assumptions and goals. Do you disagree?
John Gutierrez
>How do you know?
Look up Clive Wearing's journal. He has six second explicit memory, and is stuck with all his previous knowledge. He can no longer consolidate new episodic or autobiographical memories.
>Have you experienced the loss of your explicit memory?
Look up how Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor describes it. She got a brain stroke and loss her explicit memory. She had to develop a new identity, and she claims she feels no sentimentality when looking at photos of her family. She became a Neuroscientist by the way.
>If someone loses part of their explicit memory, are they less of a person?
Personhood is rooted in explicit memory. Since explicit memory is always changing, we always reinventing our self-image.
>Why can't I exist as awareness without memory?
Look up blindsight, a disorder were people deny having seen a visual stimulus even though their behavior implies that the stimulus was in fact seen. In order for an "I" to exist, there must be metacognitive awareness, and this is rooted in explicit memory. Keep in mind, all experience is within working memory.
>Perhaps the brain is merely a receiver for consciousness.
Maybe. I never denied this. However, it is unfalsifiable.
>You're still making the materialist assumption here. If you are certain that materialism is correct no amount of doubt I try to inject will change your mind.
I agree with this guy:
CONTINUED
Jordan Wood
>CONTINUED
""I am a neuroscientist and so 99% of the time I behave like a materialist, acknowledging that the mind is real but fully dependent on the brain. But we don't actually know this. We really don't. We assume our sense of will is a causal result of the neurochemical processes in our brain, but this is a leap of faith. Perhaps the brain is something like a complex radio receiver that integrates consciousness signals that float around in some form. Perhaps one part of visual cortex is important for decoding the bandwidth that contains motion consciousness and another part of the brain is critical to decoding the bandwith that contains our will. So damage to brain regions may alter our ability to express certain kinds of conscious experience rather than being the causal source of consciousness itself. " "I don't actually believe the radio metaphor of the brain, but I think something like it could account for all of our findings. Its unfalsifiable which is a big no-no in science. But so is the materialist view-its also unfalsifiable" (Lieberman, 2012).
>Essentially all religions assume that man is spiritual in some sense.
Look at Carvaka.
> I agree that for anything beyond that different religions have different assumptions and goals.
If they have different metaphysical assumptions, then they will by, necessity, have different goals. All similarities are thus due to chance or other trivial factors.
Julian Young
>will by, necessity,
will, by necessity,*
Daniel Morris
>loss
lost*
Brayden Garcia
>we always reinventing
we're always reinventing
>were people
where people
Not going to correct anymore typos.
Evan Price
We're speaking about two different things. When you say a "I" you imply all the memories and experiences, your sense of self. When I say "I" I'm referring to awareness, the experience of existence independent of any idea of who I am, my past, present, or future. Pure being. Of course your "I" can be altered, we have empirical evidence of that, I'm more interested in knowing if my "I" continues to exist through these alterations.
>Carvaka
Looks like an atheist club to me. I suppose I could have just said non-Materialist religions all have a general connecting idea.
Jayden Cruz
Ironically enough, yes. Dunning-Kruger affects us all, but the intelligent come to realise this sooner than the less intelligent do.
Julian Jones
The radio model of the brain is certainly not true, people who lose parts of the brain in youth, when neuroplasticity is sufficient for them to "recover", do not reacquire lost memories when they regain function.
Angel Watson
It's metaphysics, which is unfalsifiable. I don't think that fact is enough to dismiss certain metaphysical positions. If you couldn't tell, I am a pragmatist that likes to avoid metaphysics.
I honestly think debating philosophy is a waste of time. It's more interesting to take your mystic experiences and utilize such inspiration for art.
Wyatt Mitchell
I really hate how right Kierkegaard is.
This world is so stupid. So stupid. "The pure search for truth" allows us to do great things, but it also makes us dysfunctional.
How can people achieve the cognitive dissonance necessary for life? I really don't get it.
Adrian Brown
>physical universe
>MUH ATOMS MUH DETERMINISM
lmao where my idealism brothas at?