meaning and science

Hi Justin,

> > > That sounds like the cold voice of a scientist.
> >
> > Why is it cold?
>
> I think I must have been a bit too tired when I wrote
> that! Sorry!
> Well, it does seem a bit cold to me. To me it had a
> Darwinian flavour of things only arising in nature by
> total accident and chance, and then being selected
> merely by the competetive forces of natural selection.
> I may of course have been totally misreading you.
> Anyway, I think that Darwinian view is at the very
> least extremely one-sided, and misses out the inherent
> creative force of the universe and all that is in it.
> Darwin's story simply can't explain the facts we have.

Can you show this? Or do you merely find it hard to
believe Darwin's story? It's quite possible that Darwin's
story is incomplete, and its ability to convince you
might and should guide you there. But what you said is
that it *cannot explain the facts we have*. That's a
strong statement. What do you base it on?

> > I'll check it out. I didn't say I didn't think the
> > world was animate, though. :)
>
> I'm glad to hear it. I think one's experience of life
> can be much more meaningful with such a view.

I find my life is most meaningful when I do not alter my
beliefs to make it more meaningful. But then, I suppose
my restraint in "altering" my beliefs is perhaps just as
artificial. :)

> I suppose what I meant is that if science says that we
> live in a universe which is an accident, where all
> events are purely by chance,
//
> and everything about our past and
> future is again merely the product of random
> collisions and chance events all with no inherent
> meaning at all,

What is meaningful? If I say God created it all, how is
that more meaningful? If I say it happened by chance?
If I say there's some deep mysterious purpose but I don't
know what it is? It's really no different that I can see.

> and we are alive on a dead (inanimate) planet by absolute
> chance because of the infinitesimally small chance of
> some random molecules colliding,

I don't think there's any consensus that the chance was
infinitesimally small. In fact the basic reactions have
been done in a test tube with a spark. Though there is
something called the fine-tuning problem in physics.

> > I hardly think it has. Humans succeeded in hunting
> > all of the large land animals on three continents to
> > extinction 60,000 years before you seem to be
> > claiming the nihilistic view arose.
>
> I would suggest that that was not due to any
> nihilistic view, but parhaps due the foolishness and
> imaturity inherent in ethnoi in their early stages of
> development (Ethnoi being the plural of ethnos,
> basically meaning ethnic group. See a fantastic book
> on the subject by Lev Gumilev, available in English
> under the title "Ethnogenesis and the Bioshpere").

So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
growing pains?

> I think the main trouble seemed to come with the
> advent of agriculture. And that brings a huge
> philosophical shift. Hunter gatherers are in an
> animate world in which they are not seperate from
> nature. Agriculturalists automatically generate a
> division between themselves and nature, and that
> starts off a division in their mind (or amplifies it).
> This is the whole "human" as opposed to "nature"
> thing, which leads on to ideas of a paradise seperate
> from "here", eg going to heaven in another place etc.
//
> This connects with the Christian church
> believing that the next life is more important than
> this one.

I think there's some truth to this. However I'm wary,
because it seems to say that since we're in an agricultural
age, paradise really is somewhere other than here.

My own experience of science has brought me closer to
nature, increased my desire to live in finely-balanced
ecosystems, etc.

> It also leads to the idea that our experience is
> somehow not valid (we are in the realm of form) in
> the same way as the truth which produces it (realm
> of ideas) and so qualities become secondary,
> measurable quantities primary. With measurements we
> can then derive formulae and MATHEMATICS, which is
> a far "truer" reality (realm of ideas).

I think our experience is just another sort of measurement,
albeit a very intricate one, and it's fallible just like
other measurements.

The fallibility of human experience is an important lesson.
When I first read Castaneda, I thought it was a brilliant
argument for what I believed at the time: that reality is
created by our experience. If I take peyote and experience
flying, I really have flown. But David Deutsch convinced
me that models create reality. And that I was hallucinating
because I took a drug and therefore was not flying in the
way I experienced it is a better model than Don Juan's.
( This ties in to solipsism, which I discuss at
http://www.lumma.org/microwave/#2003.05.07 )

I've observed a strong desire for people to protect what
they feel is sacred. Most people seem to think machines
will never achieve human intelligence. I've never heard
a convincing defense of this position. Some very smart
people even go to ridiculous lengths to support it, as
Penrose did in _The Emperor's New Mind_. Most of these
people will live to see themselves proven wrong. Except
even when machines pass Turing tests, claim to have
emotions, and do everything else humans do, these people
will probably say they lack some sacred element that
humans have (but that can't be observed).

Many people seem to think their emotions are fundamental
aspects of the universe. Now it may be that if we ever
discover the principles of intelligence (note this is
not necessary for building intelligent machines), emotions
will turn out to be an indispensable technique or
unavoidable by-product. Thus they would achieve the status
of a natural law (fundamental aspect of the universe).
However, for now I think the better model is that these
people are trying to protect some grand interpretation of
their feelings. And I think we've seen it on the Tuning
list...

Model 1: Music is cool, music theory is cool.

Model 2: Music is sacred, anything sacred can't be
explained, therefore music theory is evil and/or doomed
to fail.

Which model makes more sense?

> An effect of this is a removal from emotions. This
> mindset also implies no ethics. Science is science,
> not ethics.
> The destruction we are carrying out today is clearly
> on a radically different scale to ever before.

I'm not sure that's true. The extinction of the megaflora
and fauna, the possible genocide of the Neanderthals, the
burning of forests over entire continents...

> I think that can only be carried out when we are
> disconnected from nature in this way.

I'd love to know if "aboriginal" people really were more
connected to nature.

When I was a kid we watched this movie, The Emerald Forest.
Great flick (especially for the '80s). It tells the story
of a guy who's an engineer on a project to build a dam on
the Amazon. His 4-year-old son Tommy gets kidnapped by
natives, and is raised by them in a utopian setting. When
Tommy is 18, the dam is almost finished, and Dad finally
finds him. But the construction of the dam has destroyed
territory and forced another tribe, the "fierce people",
into contact with Tommy's tribe. Murder ensues, and Tommy
and his Dad must use their hallucinogenic snuff visions
to save the day (and a bunch of dynamite, which his Dad
uses to blow up the dam). The movie had a profound impact
on my life. I've even taken the active ingredient in those
snuffs, 5-MeO-DMT.

In 2002, I decided to watch it again. Yep, good stuff, and
apparently based on a true story! Ok, I tried to look into
it. The tribes depicted are in Ecuador, and the activity of
oil companies there can be likened to the dam project.
Tommy's tribe was apparently part of a group known as the
Huaorani...

http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Huaorani

I got a documentary called Amazon: The Invisible People,
which shows real Huaorani. Boy was I depressed when I saw
their quality of life. Fishing with dynamite (gifts from
the oil company), wearing torn-up t-shirts, feet flattened
into pancakes by years of shoeless walking, toothless
mouths, and general dispair.

However, some Huaorani tribes are apparently still living
in non-contact with the West, so their lives may be very
different than what I saw on this documentary. So there's
hope.

I think the Lenape had it pretty good in Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, pre-contact. The Iroquois, too, and probably
many other Indian tribes.

I was in a motel in 2004 and saw part of a documentary on
a tribe in the rainforest... wish I could remember the name
of the tribe. They seemed pretty happy.

> > Meanwhile, it may be surprising that I'm a tribalist
> > of sorts, who believes odd things like that toilets
> > and routine infant circumcision are the greatest evils
> > in the world
>
> What's wrong with toilets? You don't want to shit all
> over the place like they do in India do you? That
> really does cause a lot of sickness! Or is it flush
> toilets that you disapprove of. i could understand
> that. Compost toilets are good. Or you can even make
> gas for cooking/heating from some toilets! (Hey, maybe
> someone could make a gas powered organ toilet!)

Yes, primarily flush toilets, though a ditch is probably
ideal. Anything that encourages population density while
quietly shuttling away the consequences is pretty-much
daft, I think.

> > and that we should all be living in dome communities
> > in the forest.
>
> Start one in Europe and I might join you!

I'm working on the Pacific Northwest (US). I do love
Europe and the UK, though. If immigration policies
weren't so strict I very well may have moved there some
years ago.

> > I've been quite fond of the Goethe I've read, though
> > none of it mentioned science.
>
> Apparently he considered himself primarily as a
> scientist. People don't remember this because they
> thought his science was total nonsence. One place now
> taking his science seriously is the Schumacher College
> in Dartington, Devon (UK). His was a science of
> qualities. It is very very good. Maybe try Henri's
> book. Basically his approach was that he wanted to
> understand phenomena "from their own side". Understand
> things "as they are". He thought the scientific
> approach of trying to explain things by explaining
> what is "behind" them, eg. in terms of formulae, maths
> etc was misguided and perhaps going further from the
> truth of the phenomena. Something like that.

Hmm.

> > I disagree with most critiques of science I've seen,
> > by Nietzsche and others.
>
> I've never read them. I get the impression they might
> have many many words, which usually puts me off.

Nietzsche was pretty to-the-point, with one-liners like
"all knowledge without purpose is sin" or some such.

> > As for the "determininist scientists", how many do
> > you know?
>
> I've met quite a few. Actually the sciences were alway
> smy favourite subjects at school, and i continue to
> like science, though my emphasis has shifted since
> school as I have been exposed to different methods and
> views. And isn't mainstream science deterministic?
> Linear causation and all that?

So called complexity studies, nonlinear systems, agent-
based models, are all the rage in a variety of fields.

> > I count among my closest friends and both of
> > my parents at least a dozen professional scientests
> > (and many more I've partied with). They're all more
> > religious than I am.
>
> That's interesting. Are you in the States?

Yes. My Mom and Dad are devout Lutherans; both converted
from atheism as adults. One of my best friends is a
neuroscientist, was born on a baptist mission in Brazil
and has since converted to Catholicism. Another close
friend studying cancer was born Catholic. Most of the
scientists I know do not affiliate with a particular
religion, but they all seem more willing than I to consider
the supernatural, and many of them believe in some sort
of god.

> I wonder how they could hold belief in the Christian
> doctrines (if they're Christian) at the same time as
> their scientific views.

This has been my experience.

Cheers!

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> Hi Justin,
>
> > > > That sounds like the cold voice of a scientist.
> > >
> > > Why is it cold?
> >
> > I think I must have been a bit too tired when I wrote
> > that! Sorry!
> > Well, it does seem a bit cold to me. To me it had a
> > Darwinian flavour of things only arising in nature by
> > total accident and chance, and then being selected
> > merely by the competetive forces of natural selection.
> > I may of course have been totally misreading you.
> > Anyway, I think that Darwinian view is at the very
> > least extremely one-sided, and misses out the inherent
> > creative force of the universe and all that is in it.
> > Darwin's story simply can't explain the facts we have.
>
> Can you show this? Or do you merely find it hard to
> believe Darwin's story? It's quite possible that Darwin's
> story is incomplete, and its ability to convince you
> might and should guide you there. But what you said is
> that it *cannot explain the facts we have*. That's a
> strong statement. What do you base it on?

Hi Carl
I'm sorry to say that I cannot remember the details. Brian Goowin is
a scientist for whom I have the absolute greatest repect. His books
are also very informative about all this (and more!). I don't
remember if this issue is in "Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades
Biology " or "How the Leopard Changed Its Spots : The Evolution of
Complexity". Both are great books. The latter is an easy read, the
former more technical.

> > > I'll check it out. I didn't say I didn't think the
> > > world was animate, though. :)
> >
> > I'm glad to hear it. I think one's experience of life
> > can be much more meaningful with such a view.
>
> I find my life is most meaningful when I do not alter my
> beliefs to make it more meaningful. But then, I suppose
> my restraint in "altering" my beliefs is perhaps just as
> artificial. :)

As soon as I wrote that I realised the implication you suggest.
However I meant it not as a reason to chance one's view, but merely
as an observation of the differing consequences of those views.
However, it might be noted that we are at least "shaping" the view
we have merely by leadning the life we lead, living in which
environment we chose, reading whatever publications, associating
with whatever people etc. All these have, I believe, a very definite
effect on how we view the world and perceive all our experience.

> > I suppose what I meant is that if science says that we
> > live in a universe which is an accident, where all
> > events are purely by chance,
> //
> > and everything about our past and
> > future is again merely the product of random
> > collisions and chance events all with no inherent
> > meaning at all,
>
> What is meaningful?

I find love quite meaningful. However if I were to believe that love
is a randomly evolved biochemical manifestation solely for
increasing sex and maintaining the population for continuing
some "selfish genes", I would find it rather meaningless in the
end. On the other hand if I see it as an inherent aspect of the
fundamental nature of all existance (that may be a fair way to
explain our Buddhist view, but I may also suggest that that could
conform to the "book" notions of God), then I feel it has far more
meaning.

> If I say God created it all, how is
> that more meaningful?

Well, I don't hold that view, but if I did then I might feel that in
that case there was a "purpose", and so it automatically has more
meaning.

> If I say it happened by chance?

That alone might be fine. But whether there is meaning or not may
depend on other views that make up your outlook as a whole. but I
would think that generally, if something is thought of a purely
happening by chance, wouldn't that make it meaningless? That is not
to say that the "outcome" might be meaningless note.

> If I say there's some deep mysterious purpose but I don't
> know what it is?

Well, if that were the case, then maybe there is a way to work it
out? It may be exactly that which motivates so many people, not just
throughout history, but also today.

> It's really no different that I can see.
>
> > and we are alive on a dead (inanimate) planet by absolute
> > chance because of the infinitesimally small chance of
> > some random molecules colliding,
>
> I don't think there's any consensus that the chance was
> infinitesimally small. In fact the basic reactions have
> been done in a test tube with a spark.

What do you think of the chances of ME creating life in a test tube
with a spark? Infinitesimally small I'd say!
But aside from that, I love James Lovelock's view. Have you read
about Gaia theory? That was totally heretical! Finally he is being
taken seriously though, as his predictions all came true apparently.
Still, I don't think his theory is totally accepted by the orthodox.
I think the name freaks them out!

> Though there is
> something called the fine-tuning problem in physics.
>
> > > I hardly think it has. Humans succeeded in hunting
> > > all of the large land animals on three continents to
> > > extinction 60,000 years before you seem to be
> > > claiming the nihilistic view arose.
> >
> > I would suggest that that was not due to any
> > nihilistic view, but parhaps due the foolishness and
> > imaturity inherent in ethnoi in their early stages of
> > development (Ethnoi being the plural of ethnos,
> > basically meaning ethnic group. See a fantastic book
> > on the subject by Lev Gumilev, available in English
> > under the title "Ethnogenesis and the Bioshpere").
>
> So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> growing pains?

I think it is different here. But, you may be right concerning the
US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi. The US however..

> > I think the main trouble seemed to come with the
> > advent of agriculture. And that brings a huge
> > philosophical shift. Hunter gatherers are in an
> > animate world in which they are not seperate from
> > nature. Agriculturalists automatically generate a
> > division between themselves and nature, and that
> > starts off a division in their mind (or amplifies it).
> > This is the whole "human" as opposed to "nature"
> > thing, which leads on to ideas of a paradise seperate
> > from "here", eg going to heaven in another place etc.
> //
> > This connects with the Christian church
> > believing that the next life is more important than
> > this one.
>
> I think there's some truth to this. However I'm wary,
> because it seems to say that since we're in an agricultural
> age, paradise really is somewhere other than here.

That's an interesting suggestion! I think you are totally right! It
seems that paradise was never conceived to be "elsewhere" in hunter-
gatherer societies. It was only with the rise of agriculure that
such ideas arose. Think for example of the Jewish/Christian Adan and
Eve story. They were in paradise in Eden. Then they messed up, and
were cursed by God to toil the land by the sweat of their brows and
continually move on. Something like that wasn't it? That, is the
agricultural curse. (See Hugh Brody, The Other Side of Eden).

> My own experience of science has brought me closer to
> nature, increased my desire to live in finely-balanced
> ecosystems, etc.

I've very glad to hear so.

> > It also leads to the idea that our experience is
> > somehow not valid (we are in the realm of form) in
> > the same way as the truth which produces it (realm
> > of ideas) and so qualities become secondary,
> > measurable quantities primary. With measurements we
> > can then derive formulae and MATHEMATICS, which is
> > a far "truer" reality (realm of ideas).
>
> I think our experience is just another sort of measurement,
> albeit a very intricate one, and it's fallible just like
> other measurements.

Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But I would not
like to think of my own experience as "measurement".

> The fallibility of human experience is an important lesson.
> When I first read Castaneda, I thought it was a brilliant
> argument for what I believed at the time: that reality is
> created by our experience. If I take peyote and experience
> flying, I really have flown. But David Deutsch convinced
> me that models create reality. And that I was hallucinating
> because I took a drug and therefore was not flying in the
> way I experienced it is a better model than Don Juan's.

In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also somewhat
comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with models and all
that. In that way, we do create the reality we live in. There is a
teaching in Buddhism which refers to that as the 1st nature. It is a
total illusion, and has no reality if its own. The 2nd nature is
deeper than that. You see, the models we have and all that, are
actually based on something. That is, there is something which is
the object of our delusion or whatever. That reality is called the
2nd nature. It is real, in a sense, though it does not exactly have
what we call "inherent existance". It is existing interdependantly
with everthing else in existance. And it is impermanent. Then the
3rd nature is what we might call the untimate essence of everything,
or also called "emptiness", and so on. It is not "nothing". Though,
it is "no thing", if you see what I mean. Actually it is a positive
thing, but it is perhaps more easily implied by negatives. Anyway it
is beyind all concept. That, we ca refer to as "ultimate truth". The
rest is "relative truth". "Wisdom" is ultimately direct perception
of that 3rd truth.

> ( This ties in to solipsism, which I discuss at
> http://www.lumma.org/microwave/#2003.05.07 )
>
> I've observed a strong desire for people to protect what
> they feel is sacred.

This perhaps is fair. Though depending on how it is gone about can
lead to trouble!

> Many people seem to think their emotions are fundamental
> aspects of the universe. Now it may be that if we ever
> discover the principles of intelligence (note this is
> not necessary for building intelligent machines), emotions
> will turn out to be an indispensable technique or
> unavoidable by-product. Thus they would achieve the status
> of a natural law (fundamental aspect of the universe).
> However, for now I think the better model is that these
> people are trying to protect some grand interpretation of
> their feelings. And I think we've seen it on the Tuning
> list...
>
> Model 1: Music is cool, music theory is cool.
>
> Model 2: Music is sacred, anything sacred can't be
> explained, therefore music theory is evil and/or doomed
> to fail.
>
> Which model makes more sense?

I like the "music is sacred" bit! I think it can be, at least. Don't
like the "evil" bit though!

> > An effect of this is a removal from emotions. This
> > mindset also implies no ethics. Science is science,
> > not ethics.
> > The destruction we are carrying out today is clearly
> > on a radically different scale to ever before.
>
> I'm not sure that's true. The extinction of the megaflora
> and fauna, the possible genocide of the Neanderthals, the
> burning of forests over entire continents...

In terms of Gaia as a whole organism, don't you think we are in a
far worse position now than then?

>
> > I think that can only be carried out when we are
> > disconnected from nature in this way.
>
> I'd love to know if "aboriginal" people really were more
> connected to nature.

I firmly believe so. And there are still some remaining hunter
gatherers. not many. They only survive where the agriculturalists
have not wiped them out, at the very edges of livable land where
agriculture cannot succeed. Again I recommend Hugh Brody's book. He
spent lots of time with them.

> When I was a kid we watched this movie, The Emerald Forest.
> Great flick (especially for the '80s). It tells the story
> of a guy who's an engineer on a project to build a dam on
> the Amazon. His 4-year-old son Tommy gets kidnapped by
> natives, and is raised by them in a utopian setting. When
> Tommy is 18, the dam is almost finished, and Dad finally
> finds him. But the construction of the dam has destroyed
> territory and forced another tribe, the "fierce people",
> into contact with Tommy's tribe. Murder ensues, and Tommy
> and his Dad must use their hallucinogenic snuff visions
> to save the day (and a bunch of dynamite, which his Dad
> uses to blow up the dam). The movie had a profound impact
> on my life. I've even taken the active ingredient in those
> snuffs, 5-MeO-DMT.

Funny stuff DMT. Did you meet aliens?

> http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Huaorani
>
> I got a documentary called Amazon: The Invisible People,
> which shows real Huaorani. Boy was I depressed when I saw
> their quality of life. Fishing with dynamite (gifts from
> the oil company), wearing torn-up t-shirts, feet flattened
> into pancakes by years of shoeless walking, toothless
> mouths, and general dispair.

Sad. Oil profits. Not good.

> Yes, primarily flush toilets, though a ditch is probably
> ideal.

I've done that a lot! But really, it is important to have good
hygene. It's not alway s easy to do that with an open ditch. in
India monsoon is particularly a bad season for this as the shit is
washed into the water sourses.

> Anything that encourages population density while
> quietly shuttling away the consequences is pretty-much
> daft, I think.

Well, I think flush toilets were first used in Enland in london
(maybe the first in the world?). I don't think they encouraged the
density exactly. But they may have improved the living conditions,
which is a good thing. But, ultimately it was not good, filling the
river thames with shit and so on. It got very smelly. But I wonder
what a better way to do it for a city is? Anyway, not really my
speciallity so I think I'l leave it to others!

>
> > > and that we should all be living in dome communities
> > > in the forest.
> >
> > Start one in Europe and I might join you!
>
> I'm working on the Pacific Northwest (US). I do love
> Europe and the UK, though. If immigration policies
> weren't so strict I very well may have moved there some
> years ago.
>
> > > I've been quite fond of the Goethe I've read, though
> > > none of it mentioned science.
> >
> > Apparently he considered himself primarily as a
> > scientist. People don't remember this because they
> > thought his science was total nonsence. One place now
> > taking his science seriously is the Schumacher College
> > in Dartington, Devon (UK). His was a science of
> > qualities. It is very very good. Maybe try Henri's
> > book. Basically his approach was that he wanted to
> > understand phenomena "from their own side". Understand
> > things "as they are". He thought the scientific
> > approach of trying to explain things by explaining
> > what is "behind" them, eg. in terms of formulae, maths
> > etc was misguided and perhaps going further from the
> > truth of the phenomena. Something like that.
>
> Hmm.

Actually very similar to the Budhhist approach in certain ways. But
his methods cannot be undertood I think until experienced.

> > > I disagree with most critiques of science I've seen,
> > > by Nietzsche and others.
> >
> > I've never read them. I get the impression they might
> > have many many words, which usually puts me off.
>
> Nietzsche was pretty to-the-point, with one-liners like
> "all knowledge without purpose is sin" or some such.

Sin - that's pretty strong! You know, there were certain questions
asked of the Buddha that he simply wouldn't answer. He was only
interested in teaching about or saying anything that would be
conducive to enlightenment - to relieving suffering and making
beings happy. Sounds somehow similar.

> > > As for the "determininist scientists", how many do
> > > you know?
> >
> > I've met quite a few. Actually the sciences were alway
> > smy favourite subjects at school, and i continue to
> > like science, though my emphasis has shifted since
> > school as I have been exposed to different methods and
> > views. And isn't mainstream science deterministic?
> > Linear causation and all that?
>
> So called complexity studies, nonlinear systems, agent-
> based models, are all the rage in a variety of fields.

I love that stuff. Finally science seems to be making some sense! I
mean, you know, it made some sense already of coarse. But, it seems
it took this long for science to finally cotton on to what the
Buddha was already taching 2500 years ago, about interdependance, co-
dependant origination. But then, all this complexity theory - is it
actually having much impact on the worldviews of all the numerous
schools of science? With such levels of specialization in science,
might it seem that there has actually not been that much impact on
the most of it?

> > > I count among my closest friends and both of
> > > my parents at least a dozen professional scientests
> > > (and many more I've partied with). They're all more
> > > religious than I am.
> >
> > That's interesting. Are you in the States?
>
> Yes. My Mom and Dad are devout Lutherans; both converted
> from atheism as adults. One of my best friends is a
> neuroscientist, was born on a baptist mission in Brazil
> and has since converted to Catholicism. Another close
> friend studying cancer was born Catholic. Most of the
> scientists I know do not affiliate with a particular
> religion, but they all seem more willing than I to consider
> the supernatural, and many of them believe in some sort
> of god.
>
> > I wonder how they could hold belief in the Christian
> > doctrines (if they're Christian) at the same time as
> > their scientific views.
>
> This has been my experience.

Good on them.
Best wishes
Justin.

> > > Anyway, I think that Darwinian view is at the very
> > > least extremely one-sided, and misses out the inherent
> > > creative force of the universe and all that is in it.
> > > Darwin's story simply can't explain the facts we have.
> >
> > Can you show this? Or do you merely find it hard to
> > believe Darwin's story? It's quite possible that Darwin's
> > story is incomplete, and its ability to convince you
> > might and should guide you there. But what you said is
> > that it *cannot explain the facts we have*. That's a
> > strong statement. What do you base it on?
>
> I'm sorry to say that I cannot remember the details. Brian
> Goowin is a scientist for whom I have the absolute greatest
> repect. His books are also very informative about all
> this (and more!). I don't remember if this issue is in
> "Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology " or
> "How the Leopard Changed Its Spots : The Evolution of
> Complexity". Both are great books. The latter is an easy
> read, the former more technical.

My neuroscientist friend was given one of his books by a
mutual friend of ours who turned down 3 job offers from the
NSA when he found Christ. I got CS Lewis' Mere Christianity
at the same time. Maybe we could swap.

> > > I suppose what I meant is that if science says that we
> > > live in a universe which is an accident, where all
> > > events are purely by chance,
> >
> > What is meaningful?
>
> I find love quite meaningful. However if I were to believe
> that love is a randomly evolved biochemical manifestation
> solely for increasing sex and maintaining the population for
> continuing some "selfish genes", I would find it rather
> meaningless in the end.

I suppose that belief makes it more meaningful to me, since
it gives love purpose.

> On the other hand if I see it as an inherent aspect of the
> fundamental nature of all existance (that may be a fair way
> to explain our Buddhist view, but I may also suggest that
> that could conform to the "book" notions of God), then I
> feel it has far more meaning.

I certainly find it cool that I can recognize a full range
of emotion in almost all mammals (I do not think this is
anthropomorphizing). And I believe all life shares something
in the nature of existence, survival, and thermodynamics.

> > If I say God created it all, how is that more meaningful?
>
> Well, I don't hold that view, but if I did then I might feel
> that in that case there was a "purpose", and so it automatically
> has more meaning.

I don't think it adds much meaning. Where does God come from?
Why did he create us? Can we ever know? (Usually the answer
to this last question is "no".) It doesn't seem to tell me
much of anything.

> > If I say it happened by chance?
>
> That alone might be fine. But whether there is meaning or not
> may depend on other views that make up your outlook as a whole.
> but I would think that generally, if something is thought of a
> purely happening by chance, wouldn't that make it meaningless?

I guess I don't expect the universe to provide much meaning to
me, a mere human. On the other hand, I am able to move a lot
of information around, and I try to do that the best I can, and
it all seems to fit with the scheme of things on Earth, and
that's pretty cool.

> > > and we are alive ... because of the infinitesimally
> > > small chance of some random molecules colliding,
> >
> > I don't think there's any consensus that the chance was
> > infinitesimally small. In fact the basic reactions have
> > been done in a test tube with a spark.
>
> What do you think of the chances of ME creating life in a
> test tube with a spark? Infinitesimally small I'd say!

Life took more than a human lifetime. Once a few key
reactions happen, though, the rest go faster. Only the first
reactions happen by "chance". The rest are made more likely
by the system created by the first.

> But aside from that, I love James Lovelock's view. Have you
> read about Gaia theory? That was totally heretical! Finally
> he is being taken seriously though, as his predictions all
> came true apparently. Still, I don't think his theory is
> totally accepted by the orthodox. I think the name freaks
> them out!

I believe the Earth funtions as a whole to a large extent,
and I often fancy trees as little hairs. I haven't read
Lovelock, but maybe I should.

> > > > Humans succeeded in hunting all of the large land
> > > > animals on three continents to extinction 60,000
> > > > years before ...
> > >
> > > I would suggest that was due the foolishness and
> > > imaturity inherent in ethnoi in their early stages of
> > > development (Ethnoi being the plural of ethnos,
> > > basically meaning ethnic group. See a fantastic book
> > > on the subject by Lev Gumilev, available in English
> > > under the title "Ethnogenesis and the Bioshpere").
> >
> > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> > growing pains?
>
> I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> The US however...

It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU. But
maybe the whole thing just takes time. I think the world
is working in greater harmony than ever before, at least
from an economic standpoint. I would like to see a return
of certain fundamental industries (chiefly agriculture and
electricity generation) to the local level. And I am
concerned about the sweat shop problem. But in China as in
Japan and South Korea, things are clearly improving. If the
same could happen in Africa / South America I would rejoice.

> > > I think the main trouble seemed to come with the
> > > advent of agriculture. ... This is the whole "human"
> > > as opposed to "nature" thing, which leads on to
> > > ideas of a paradise seperate from "here", eg going
> > > to heaven in another place etc.
> > > This connects with the Christian church believing
> > > that the next life is more important than this one.
> >
> > I think there's some truth to this. However I'm wary,
> > because it seems to say that since we're in an agricultural
> > age, paradise really is somewhere other than here.
>
> That's an interesting suggestion! I think you are totally
> right! It seems that paradise was never conceived to be
> "elsewhere" in hunter-gatherer societies. It was only with
> the rise of agriculure that such ideas arose.

Hrm. I've always thought the idea of paradise was totally
universal in all cultures. I could be wrong, though.
But I saw your comment of accepting reality as something
one's supposed to do no matter what situation he's in.

> Think for example of the Jewish/Christian Adan and Eve
> story.

Egyptian originally, according to a documentary I once saw.

> They were in paradise in Eden. Then they messed up, and
> were cursed by God to toil the land by the sweat of their
> brows and continually move on. Something like that wasn't
> it? That, is the agricultural curse.

It certainly sounds that way. We're definitely dependent
on agriculture now. We can't go back without a massive
reduction in population. I do think we can gradually improve
things by doing more local farming. Even bringing farms
to city rooftops (which is happenning). Teaching gardening
in elementary school. . .

> > > It also leads to the idea that our experience is
> > > somehow not valid ... so qualities become secondary,
> > > measurable quantities primary.
> >
> > I think our experience is just another sort of measurement,
> > albeit a very intricate one, and it's fallible just like
> > other measurements.
>
> Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But I
> would not like to think of my own experience as "measurement".

Ah, herein lies the rub.

> > The fallibility of human experience is an important lesson.
> > When I first read Castaneda, I thought it was a brilliant
> > argument for what I believed at the time: that reality is
> > created by our experience. If I take peyote and experience
> > flying, I really have flown. But David Deutsch convinced
> > me that models create reality. And that I was hallucinating
> > because I took a drug and therefore was not flying in the
> > way I experienced it is a better model than Don Juan's.
>
> In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
> somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
> models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
> we live in.

I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
"You are what you think".

> There is a teaching in Buddhism which refers to that as the
> 1st nature. It is a total illusion, and has no reality if
> its own. The 2nd nature is deeper than that. You see, the
> models we have and all that, are actually based on something.
> That is, there is something which is the object of our
> delusion or whatever. That reality is called the 2nd nature.
> It is real, in a sense, though it does not exactly have what
> we call "inherent existance". It is existing interdependantly
> with everthing else in existance. And it is impermanent. Then
> the 3rd nature is what we might call the untimate essence of
> everything, or also called "emptiness", and so on. It is
> not "nothing". Though, it is "no thing", if you see what I
> mean. Actually it is a positive thing, but it is perhaps more
> easily implied by negatives. Anyway it is beyind all concept.
> That, we can refer to as "ultimate truth". The rest is
> "relative truth". "Wisdom" is ultimately direct perception
> of that 3rd truth.

I can agree with this in a roundabout way. The 1st nature I
might call the world as seen by the ego, and I agree that it
is not real in that it can be transformed by both the mind
(positive/negative thinking) and the hands. If the 2nd nature
is models, I think they really *are* reality, but they're
necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean they're an
incomplete description of reality, but rather that reality
itself is incomplete! The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call
existential truth. It's what can be done with the models you
have, in your lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary
1st nature.

> > > The destruction we are carrying out today is clearly
> > > on a radically different scale to ever before.
> >
> > I'm not sure that's true. The extinction of the megaflora
> > and fauna, the possible genocide of the Neanderthals, the
> > burning of forests over entire continents...
>
> In terms of Gaia as a whole organism, don't you think we are
> in a far worse position now than then?

Perhaps. I don't buy global warming or any of that. I mean,
the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced it's
caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful to the
planet (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of their
food, probably).

The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is troublesome.
Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
here. I can't say I fancy that, but if it happens I suppose
it will be what nature intended.

I would guess there are fewer forests today than then, which
I'm not crazy about. But I do note that there has been a
massive reforestation of the Eastern US in the last 75 years.

If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
problems, because they create the technology to solve them
in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .

> > I'd love to know if "aboriginal" people really were more
> > connected to nature.
>
> I firmly believe so. And there are still some remaining
> hunter gatherers. not many. They only survive where the
> agriculturalists have not wiped them out, at the very edges
> of livable land where agriculture cannot succeed. Again I
> recommend Hugh Brody's book. He spent lots of time with them.

That's
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865476381/
for those of you following along.

> > When I was a kid we watched this movie, The Emerald Forest.
> > Great flick (especially for the '80s). It tells the story
> > of a guy who's an engineer on a project to build a dam on
> > the Amazon. His 4-year-old son Tommy gets kidnapped by
> > natives, and is raised by them in a utopian setting. When
> > Tommy is 18, the dam is almost finished, and Dad finally
> > finds him. But the construction of the dam has destroyed
> > territory and forced another tribe, the "fierce people",
> > into contact with Tommy's tribe. Murder ensues, and Tommy
> > and his Dad must use their hallucinogenic snuff visions
> > to save the day (and a bunch of dynamite, which his Dad
> > uses to blow up the dam). The movie had a profound impact
> > on my life. I've even taken the active ingredient in those
> > snuffs, 5-MeO-DMT.
>
> Funny stuff DMT. Did you meet aliens?

5-MeO-DMT is different than DMT. I've taken both and never
met aliens. 5-MeO seems unlikely to cause one see much of
anything (detached trance is more like it), but smoking it
and insufflating it are two different things, and there may
be other significant compounds in those snuffs.

> > Yes, primarily flush toilets, though a ditch is probably
> > ideal.
>
> I've done that a lot! But really, it is important to have
> good hygene. It's not alway s easy to do that with an open
> ditch. in India monsoon is particularly a bad season for
> this as the shit is washed into the water sourses.

Ah yes, it does depend on where you are. I came up with
that for rocky, mountainous Pennsylvania. It works very
well if you sprikle some dirt on every time, and don't pee
in it, and don't have too many people using it. When it
gets half full you top it off with dirt and make a new ditch.
It's completely hygenic. Toilets are where to go to find
disgusting germs. And shitting and peeing in the same place
is a bad idea. Shitting into water is a terrible fucking
idea. The whole thing is daft.

> > Anything that encourages population density while
> > quietly shuttling away the consequences is pretty-much
> > daft, I think.
>
> Well, I think flush toilets were first used in Enland in
> london (maybe the first in the world?). I don't think they
> encouraged the density exactly.

They were, I suppose, a great improvement on dumping the
chamber pot out the window in the morning.

The density was an economic necessity, I suppose. But
there's no doubt that flush toilets encourage density.

> But I wonder what a better way to do it for a city is?
> Anyway, not really my speciallity so I think I'l leave
> it to others!

I have seen hi-tech prototype toilets on TV that dry it out,
and composting toilets in person that seem to work well.
But the real answer is not to have cities. An acre of land
to a family of 4 seems about right to me. Much of the
suburban US has that density, but they use flush toilets
anyway! And they're even worse off the public sewer. You
either have a "sand mound" (lifespan 10-15 years) or a tank
and a "drainage field". Both are very unsanitary (it's
illegal to move the sandmound for so many years after it
fails, and drain fields are easily spotted as the soggy,
gross area where the lawn grows a bit too well). My family
had to spend $15K to replace our clogged tank/field after
living for 20 years (family of 3) on 2.5 acres. Most of our
neighbors had to do the same (all the houses were put in at
the same time). I went to study just intonation in Florida,
and in the 3 months I was there we had to rent a backhoe and
dig a new drain field. It's a terrific disaster.

Victorian homes here in Berkeley all rotting after 50 years.
It makes no sense. It's tragedies like these, caused by a
senseless application of inappropriate technology, that ruin
my environment. But you can't get people to change. They
have to be like everyone else.

The worst thing of all is cars. A family of 4 to an acre
with Segways or bicycles and diagonal paths would be great.
But with cars, the roads, driveways, garages, turn-arounds,
take up so much damn room! A perfect illustration is the
UC Berkeley vs. the Stanford campus. Same number of
students, but Stanford is 3-4 times larger (just a guess)
than Berkeley. It's so large you need a car to get around.
But wait, the only reason it's larger is because of the
roads and parking lots (Berkeley's is a walking-only campus).
The cars necessitate themselves!

> > So called complexity studies, nonlinear systems, agent-
> > based models, are all the rage in a variety of fields.
>
> I love that stuff. Finally science seems to be making some
> sense! I mean, you know, it made some sense already of
> coarse. But, it seems it took this long for science to
> finally cotton on to what the Buddha was already taching
> 2500 years ago, about interdependance, co-dependant
> origination.

One has to build the foundation first. Doing things right
takes time.

> But then, all this complexity theory - is it actually
> having much impact on the worldviews of all the numerous
> schools of science?

A tremendous impact. But you don't see much of it in
grade or undergraduate school unless you're in the sciences,
because you're just getting the stuff from 200 years ago.

Good chatting,

-Carl

A godless universe doesn't have to imply 'lack of purpose'.

One could either identify the godhead as universe, or, create one's own
purpose in life.

The existence of viruses and flesh-eating diseases and fles seem to point to
no purpose whatsoever, however.

Attributing an evil force to such facts only complicates things, and goes
against Occam's Razor. Not only that, there is absolutely no evidence for a
creator or a 'Dark One' whatsoever.

To ask me to have faith in such things is asking me to believe that Apollo
carries the sun around the Earth in a chariot.

It's extremely frightening to me that 55% of the American population thinks
that God created Man in his present form.

To me, that would mean that 55% percent of people could be naive enough to
believe that Apollo carries the sun around in a chariot, for believing that
kind of stuff amounts to the same thing in my book.

-Aaron.

it seem to me that matter might be more mysterious than we give it credit. that it has some type of 'momentum' within it to condense into what we call "life' and then into what we call "consciousness" which probably condenses into something else beyond this we are not aware of yet until we are there.

as for the 55%, i am sure the question was a bit "fixed' by the people taking it.
But a good argument against democracy . i mean should the smart be enslaved by the not so smart.
Not that democracy has resulted in this , but could.
It remains the best system for non violent 'revolutions' much of what is being instituted right now against most of us here on this list.
Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:

>A godless universe doesn't have to imply 'lack of purpose'.
>
>One could either identify the godhead as universe, or, create one's own >purpose in life.
>
>The existence of viruses and flesh-eating diseases and fles seem to point to >no purpose whatsoever, however.
>
>Attributing an evil force to such facts only complicates things, and goes >against Occam's Razor. Not only that, there is absolutely no evidence for a >creator or a 'Dark One' whatsoever.
>
>To ask me to have faith in such things is asking me to believe that Apollo >carries the sun around the Earth in a chariot.
>
>It's extremely frightening to me that 55% of the American population thinks >that God created Man in his present form.
>
>To me, that would mean that 55% percent of people could be naive enough to >believe that Apollo carries the sun around in a chariot, for believing that >kind of stuff amounts to the same thing in my book.
>
>-Aaron.
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
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>
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>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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> >
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>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

What I don't understand is how GWBush can say his pick for the Supremes will
never change her views, which only he knows. She was a Catholic who switched
at 30 to evangelicism. That's a track record of change. Johnny

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> The worst thing of all is cars. A family of 4 to an acre
> with Segways or bicycles and diagonal paths would be great.
> But with cars, the roads, driveways, garages, turn-arounds,
> take up so much damn room! A perfect illustration is the
> UC Berkeley vs. the Stanford campus. Same number of
> students, but Stanford is 3-4 times larger (just a guess)
> than Berkeley. It's so large you need a car to get around.
> But wait, the only reason it's larger is because of the
> roads and parking lots (Berkeley's is a walking-only campus).
> The cars necessitate themselves!

Dependence on automobiles is one of the worst things that
has been produced by modern society.

They take up way too much space, cause air and noise pollution,
and are a tremendous blight on the aesthetic environment.
I refused to even learn how to drive one when i was younger
... too bad that this far down the line i've become a
hypocrite and now depend on one at least as much as most
other people, if not even more.

I look at the beautiful weather here in San Diego almost
every day and think how nice it would be if this city
was laced with real bike-paths ... when i say real, i
mean a totally separated right-of-way with at minimum
a concrete divider between bicycle and car traffic,
instead of the painted white line that currently qualifies
as a "bike-path" marker.

These "real" bike-paths are being built in Canada and
in cities all over northern Europe ... but of course
in America they would interfere too much with the flow
of automobile traffic (he said sarcastically).

-monz

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

>
> I certainly find it cool that I can recognize a full range
> of emotion in almost all mammals (I do not think this is
> anthropomorphizing). And I believe all life shares something
> in the nature of existence, survival, and thermodynamics.

Maybe plants have minds too.

> > > If I say God created it all, how is that more meaningful?
> >
> > Well, I don't hold that view, but if I did then I might feel
> > that in that case there was a "purpose", and so it automatically
> > has more meaning.
>
> I don't think it adds much meaning. Where does God come from?
> Why did he create us? Can we ever know? (Usually the answer
> to this last question is "no".) It doesn't seem to tell me
> much of anything.

Some people beleive they do know I think. I think the esoteric Jews
have some interesting answers to these things.

> > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> > > growing pains?
> >
> > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > The US however...
>
> It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.

Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country. The EU is a
collection of many countries. Also a collection of many ethnoi,
(though not all the ethnoi coincide with the country boundaries).

> But
> maybe the whole thing just takes time. I think the world
> is working in greater harmony than ever before, at least
> from an economic standpoint.

Interesting view. Personally though I feel that the economy of
humans is proportionally absolutely unimportant relative to the
welfare of all life (non-human being the absolute majority) on this
planet.

> I would like to see a return
> of certain fundamental industries (chiefly agriculture and
> electricity generation) to the local level.

Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy self-
organising system.

> And I am
> concerned about the sweat shop problem. But in China as in
> Japan and South Korea, things are clearly improving.

Interesting that you group these countries together. I would think
of China as pretty much 3rd world, while Japan absolutely 1st world,
more advanced and "cililised" than the US and perhaps most of Europe.

> If the
> same could happen in Africa / South America I would rejoice.
>
> > > > I think the main trouble seemed to come with the
> > > > advent of agriculture. ... This is the whole "human"
> > > > as opposed to "nature" thing, which leads on to
> > > > ideas of a paradise seperate from "here", eg going
> > > > to heaven in another place etc.
> > > > This connects with the Christian church believing
> > > > that the next life is more important than this one.
> > >
> > > I think there's some truth to this. However I'm wary,
> > > because it seems to say that since we're in an agricultural
> > > age, paradise really is somewhere other than here.
> >
> > That's an interesting suggestion! I think you are totally
> > right! It seems that paradise was never conceived to be
> > "elsewhere" in hunter-gatherer societies. It was only with
> > the rise of agriculure that such ideas arose.
>
> Hrm. I've always thought the idea of paradise was totally
> universal in all cultures.

I don't think so. Not a paradise seperate from here. I think that is
agricultural. Always looking for something better somewhere else.

I could be wrong, though.
> But I saw your comment of accepting reality as something
> one's supposed to do no matter what situation he's in.
>
> > Think for example of the Jewish/Christian Adan and Eve
> > story.
>
> Egyptian originally, according to a documentary I once saw.

Agricultural nevertheless.

> > They were in paradise in Eden. Then they messed up, and
> > were cursed by God to toil the land by the sweat of their
> > brows and continually move on. Something like that wasn't
> > it? That, is the agricultural curse.
>
> It certainly sounds that way. We're definitely dependent
> on agriculture now. We can't go back without a massive
> reduction in population. I do think we can gradually improve
> things by doing more local farming. Even bringing farms
> to city rooftops (which is happenning). Teaching gardening
> in elementary school. . .

Good idea. but also we need good farming practise. Organic is way
better than non-organic. but still monocultures usually and so not
good. Try looking up a farmer called masanobu Fukuoka. One of his
books is The One Straw Revolution.

> > > > It also leads to the idea that our experience is
> > > > somehow not valid ... so qualities become secondary,
> > > > measurable quantities primary.
> > >
> > > I think our experience is just another sort of measurement,
> > > albeit a very intricate one, and it's fallible just like
> > > other measurements.
> >
> > Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But I
> > would not like to think of my own experience as "measurement".
>
> Ah, herein lies the rub.

What is a rub?

>
> > > The fallibility of human experience is an important lesson.
> > > When I first read Castaneda, I thought it was a brilliant
> > > argument for what I believed at the time: that reality is
> > > created by our experience. If I take peyote and experience
> > > flying, I really have flown. But David Deutsch convinced
> > > me that models create reality. And that I was hallucinating
> > > because I took a drug and therefore was not flying in the
> > > way I experienced it is a better model than Don Juan's.
> >
> > In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
> > somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
> > models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
> > we live in.
>
> I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
> shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
> "You are what you think".

By "You are what you eat" I could agree if you mean your body is
composed of material made up of food you ingested. Is that what you
mean?
As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist perspective this is
absurd. It would be like saying "You are what you see". For us what
we think, is just another sense perception. Thoughts arise in the
mind. Then they pass away. To think one IS one's thought would be
ridiculous. Look at them closely. Watch them. See them. Are
they "you"?

> > There is a teaching in Buddhism which refers to that as the
> > 1st nature. It is a total illusion, and has no reality if
> > its own. The 2nd nature is deeper than that. You see, the
> > models we have and all that, are actually based on something.
> > That is, there is something which is the object of our
> > delusion or whatever. That reality is called the 2nd nature.
> > It is real, in a sense, though it does not exactly have what
> > we call "inherent existance". It is existing interdependantly
> > with everthing else in existance. And it is impermanent. Then
> > the 3rd nature is what we might call the untimate essence of
> > everything, or also called "emptiness", and so on. It is
> > not "nothing". Though, it is "no thing", if you see what I
> > mean. Actually it is a positive thing, but it is perhaps more
> > easily implied by negatives. Anyway it is beyind all concept.
> > That, we can refer to as "ultimate truth". The rest is
> > "relative truth". "Wisdom" is ultimately direct perception
> > of that 3rd truth.
>
> I can agree with this in a roundabout way. The 1st nature I
> might call the world as seen by the ego,

yes

> and I agree that it
> is not real in that it can be transformed by both the mind
> (positive/negative thinking) and the hands. If the 2nd nature
> is models,

No. It's more like the first is models. The second is things as they
exist interdependantly. Models are only conceptual constructions.
We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like concepts
and all that, but, we think they will not get us to how things
really are. They do have their use, and in our context are used
especially to remove doubts so hat you can get on with the mind
training and so actually experience how things really are.

> I think they really *are* reality, but they're
> necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean they're an
> incomplete description of reality, but rather that reality
> itself is incomplete! The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call
> existential truth.

Not sure of the meaning of that expression.

> It's what can be done with the models you
> have, in your lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary
> 1st nature.

Here it becomes not about doing. But there is nothing to be said
about it. If you keot on saying "not", you might come closer. In
Japan some people have simply contemplated for years and years so I
beleive, the koan which is simply "no". Or is that a koan?

>
> > > > The destruction we are carrying out today is clearly
> > > > on a radically different scale to ever before.
> > >
> > > I'm not sure that's true. The extinction of the megaflora
> > > and fauna, the possible genocide of the Neanderthals, the
> > > burning of forests over entire continents...
> >
> > In terms of Gaia as a whole organism, don't you think we are
> > in a far worse position now than then?
>
> Perhaps. I don't buy global warming or any of that.

I am sad to hear that, Please please read Lovelocks latest book
about Gaia theory.

> I mean,
> the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced it's
> caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful to the
> planet

I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the US policy
on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.

(harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of their
> food, probably).

Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our lanet seems to be
iceage. Things are not looking good.

>
> The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is troublesome.

Understanding complex systems makes this problem of decreasing
biodiversity seem absolutely devastating and dangerous.

> Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
> humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
> here.

God created it for us, right?

> I can't say I fancy that, but if it happens I suppose
> it will be what nature intended.

I doubt it.

> I would guess there are fewer forests today than then,

I gaurantee.

> which
> I'm not crazy about. But I do note that there has been a
> massive reforestation of the Eastern US in the last 75 years.

Native or cash crops?

>
> If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
> might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
> problems, because they create the technology to solve them
> in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .

I don't mean to go on, but is he from the US? This seems to be based
on some kind of unreal imagination or perhaps denial? That is not
happening, and has not been happening. It just gets worse and worse,
so far. I think though that is the kind of view the current US
government would love. Also all the big multinationals and all that
(if they are not the same thing). I'm sorry to sound cynical, but
that view is so iresponsible and selfish. I'm not blaming you by the
way. Just whoever said it.

Best wishes
Justin

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...>
wrote:
> A godless universe doesn't have to imply 'lack of purpose'.
>
> One could either identify the godhead as universe, or, create one's
own
> purpose in life.
>
> The existence of viruses and flesh-eating diseases and fles seem to
point to
> no purpose whatsoever, however.

Unless you look at the whole. I think when the system is looked at as
a whole then there may be meaning in those things.
Justin.

> > The worst thing of all is cars. A family of 4 to an acre
> > with Segways or bicycles and diagonal paths would be great.
> > But with cars, the roads, driveways, garages, turn-arounds,
> > take up so much damn room! A perfect illustration is the
> > UC Berkeley vs. the Stanford campus. Same number of
> > students, but Stanford is 3-4 times larger (just a guess)
> > than Berkeley. It's so large you need a car to get around.
> > But wait, the only reason it's larger is because of the
> > roads and parking lots (Berkeley's is a walking-only campus).
> > The cars necessitate themselves!
>
> Dependence on automobiles is one of the worst things that
> has been produced by modern society.
>
> They take up way too much space, cause air and noise pollution,
> and are a tremendous blight on the aesthetic environment.
> I refused to even learn how to drive one when i was younger
> ... too bad that this far down the line i've become a
> hypocrite and now depend on one at least as much as most
> other people, if not even more.
>
> I look at the beautiful weather here in San Diego almost
> every day and think how nice it would be if this city
> was laced with real bike-paths ... when i say real, i
> mean a totally separated right-of-way with at minimum
> a concrete divider between bicycle and car traffic,
> instead of the painted white line that currently qualifies
> as a "bike-path" marker.
>
> These "real" bike-paths are being built in Canada and
> in cities all over northern Europe ... but of course
> in America they would interfere too much with the flow
> of automobile traffic (he said sarcastically).

Agreed 100%, monz.

My Dad is from Detroit, and like him I was enamored with
cars as a kid and young man. But these days I canna
stand 'em!

-Carl

> > I certainly find it cool that I can recognize a full range
> > of emotion in almost all mammals (I do not think this is
> > anthropomorphizing). And I believe all life shares something
> > in the nature of existence, survival, and thermodynamics.
>
> Maybe plants have minds too.

I bet they'd respond if you yelled at them every day vs. if
you lovingly handled them.

> > > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> > > > growing pains?
> > >
> > > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > > The US however...
> >
> > It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
>
> Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.

Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
like you meant European countries have no excuse because
they're older (?). I dunno... if European culture started
with the fall of the Roman empire... how long did it take
Native Americans to strike a balance?

While the US is a country, with a federal government of
steadily increasing power, it is a union of States. I would
compare the US to the EU before I compared it to any one
European country in this context. The cultural differences
between States can be great, though perhaps not as great as
those between European countries... But the shared currency,
geographic sizes involved...

> > I would like to see a return of certain fundamental
> > industries (chiefly agriculture and electricity generation)
> > to the local level.
>
> Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
> self-organising system.

Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful federal
government is necessary may just be wrong.

> > And I am concerned about the sweat shop problem. But in
> > China as in Japan and South Korea, things are clearly
> > improving.
>
> Interesting that you group these countries together. I would
> think of China as pretty much 3rd world, while Japan absolutely
> 1st world,

I should have said, "But in China, as in Japan and South Korea
before it, things are...".

> > It certainly sounds that way. We're definitely dependent
> > on agriculture now. We can't go back without a massive
> > reduction in population. I do think we can gradually improve
> > things by doing more local farming. Even bringing farms
> > to city rooftops (which is happenning). Teaching gardening
> > in elementary school. . .
>
> Good idea. but also we need good farming practise. Organic is
> way better than non-organic. but still monocultures usually
> and so not good. Try looking up a farmer called masanobu
> Fukuoka. One of his books is The One Straw Revolution.

I agree totally. I buy nearly 100% organic food (though I
still eat out too much). And the thing about local gardens
is that they are necessarily less 'monocultural' than large
orchards and such.

> > > > I think our experience is just another sort of
> > > > measurement, albeit a very intricate one, and it's
> > > > fallible just like other measurements.
> > >
> > > Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But
> > > I would not like to think of my own experience as
> > > "measurement".
> >
> > Ah, herein lies the rub.
>
> What is a rub?

Sorry; it's an expression for "here's the hard part" or
"here's the interesting part".

> > > In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
> > > somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
> > > models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
> > > we live in.
> >
> > I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
> > shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
> > "You are what you think".
>
> By "You are what you eat" I could agree if you mean your body is
> composed of material made up of food you ingested. Is that what
> you mean?

I just mean that our choice of food affects our bodies. Thus,
mind over matter.

> As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist perspective
> this is absurd. It would be like saying "You are what you see".

Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
in the brain.

> For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
> Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
> one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
> closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?

I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.

> > and I agree that it is not real in that it can be
> > transformed by both the mind (positive/negative thinking)
> > and the hands. If the 2nd nature is models,
>
> No. It's more like the first is models. The second is things
> as they exist interdependantly. Models are only conceptual
> constructions.

This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
other than that prescribed by models.

> We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
> perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
> concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
> how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
> context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
> get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
> things really are.

My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
self-management. Some doctrines seem to posit that human
beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).

All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
But it isn't very good epistemology.

The two are completely separate. I can embrace mental
clarity, enlightenment, as a path to my own future and
better harmony in the world _without_ thinking it gives
me access to special truth about the world around me.

> > I think they really *are* reality, but they're
> > necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean
> > they're an incomplete description of reality, but
> > rather that reality itself is incomplete!

> > The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call existential truth.
> > It's what can be done with the models you have, in your
> > lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary 1st nature.
>
> Here it becomes not about doing.

Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of the
taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree of
success).

> > I mean, the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced
> > it's caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful
> > to the planet
>
> I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the
> US policy on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.

Oh, I think the pollution should be cut anyway, and Bush's
backing out of the various accords is a big mess. But for
all your science-bashing, global warming is a "science" with
very shaky standing indeed.

> > (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> > societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
> > their food, probably).
>
> Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
> to be iceage. Things are not looking good.

Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
as recently as 1000 AD.

> > The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is
> > troublesome.
>
> Understanding complex systems makes this problem of decreasing
> biodiversity seem absolutely devastating and dangerous.

Agreed.

> > Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
> > humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
> > here.
>
> God created it for us, right?

They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.

> > But I do note that there has been a massive reforestation
> > of the Eastern US in the last 75 years.
>
> Native or cash crops?

Native! It's wonderful. Not a lot has been written about it,
but if you look at satellite photos, the whole Eastern 3rd of
the nation is solid green. It's not as good as old growth (not
even close), but it was almost barren in the '20s. There was
a great article on kuro5hin (I'm pretty sure) on this but I
can't find it now. Drat!

> > If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
> > might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
> > problems, because they create the technology to solve them
> > in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
>
> I don't mean to go on, but is he from the US?

Yup.

> This seems to be based on some kind of unreal imagination or
> perhaps denial?

It's based on the "law of accelerating returns". Not many
folks believe him, but I do (more or less). He has some
things wrong, but this much I agree with:

() In information technology (he includes life, computers,
telecommunications...), the power of the current generation
of technology is used to create the next generation of tech.
This leads to exponential growth. It may look like linear
growth because you only tend to sample a small section of
the curve, and because humans tend to think in linear ways.
But it's really exponential. This is like Moore's law for
everything. Actually I think puncuated equilibria is more
like it, but the result is probably very neary exponential.

() All significant technologies will soon be information
technologies. So today when you buy a car, about 30% of
the price is information, the design of the car, whereas
70% is raw metal, labor, and the rest. In the near future,
nearly 100% of the value of objects will be informational.
Like a DVD is already.

Check out www.kurzweilai.net.

-Carl

I second Carl. I 100% agree with the monz about the harm of automobiles of all
sorts.....as soon as I can, I want to get a hybrid car. This doesn't solve
some of the issues brought up, but at least pollution is lessened.

The space issue is annoying.....cities grow in this fractal pattern around
highways, which neccesitate new roads as the city grows further, which
neccessitates new highways to connect growing trade routes.

Many things in modern life start to make themselves neccessary out of habit,
when they really aren't neccessary. Cell Phones for instance. In a few years,
they have become common practice. And they will kill us all by giviing us
brain cance, just you wait and see.

-Aaron.

On Wednesday 05 October 2005 5:32 pm, monz wrote:
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> > The worst thing of all is cars. A family of 4 to an acre
> > with Segways or bicycles and diagonal paths would be great.
> > But with cars, the roads, driveways, garages, turn-arounds,
> > take up so much damn room! A perfect illustration is the
> > UC Berkeley vs. the Stanford campus. Same number of
> > students, but Stanford is 3-4 times larger (just a guess)
> > than Berkeley. It's so large you need a car to get around.
> > But wait, the only reason it's larger is because of the
> > roads and parking lots (Berkeley's is a walking-only campus).
> > The cars necessitate themselves!
>
> Dependence on automobiles is one of the worst things that
> has been produced by modern society.
>
> They take up way too much space, cause air and noise pollution,
> and are a tremendous blight on the aesthetic environment.
> I refused to even learn how to drive one when i was younger
> ... too bad that this far down the line i've become a
> hypocrite and now depend on one at least as much as most
> other people, if not even more.
>
> I look at the beautiful weather here in San Diego almost
> every day and think how nice it would be if this city
> was laced with real bike-paths ... when i say real, i
> mean a totally separated right-of-way with at minimum
> a concrete divider between bicycle and car traffic,
> instead of the painted white line that currently qualifies
> as a "bike-path" marker.
>
> These "real" bike-paths are being built in Canada and
> in cities all over northern Europe ... but of course
> in America they would interfere too much with the flow
> of automobile traffic (he said sarcastically).
>
>
>
> -monz
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
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>
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--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

[speaking of Ray Kurzweil]

> () In information technology (he includes life, computers,
> telecommunications...), the power of the current generation
> of technology is used to create the next generation of tech.
> This leads to exponential growth. It may look like linear
> growth because you only tend to sample a small section of
> the curve, and because humans tend to think in linear ways.
> But it's really exponential. This is like Moore's law for
> everything. Actually I think puncuated equilibria is more
> like it, but the result is probably very neary exponential.
>
> () All significant technologies will soon be information
> technologies. So today when you buy a car, about 30% of
> the price is information, the design of the car, whereas
> 70% is raw metal, labor, and the rest. In the near future,
> nearly 100% of the value of objects will be informational.
> Like a DVD is already.
>
> Check out www.kurzweilai.net.

Do you guys know about Gregory Bateson? He was one of
the most interesting thinkers i've ever read. Here's some
info with more links:

http://www.oikos.org/baten.htm

Definitely read _Steps to an Ecology of Mind_. It's a
collection of lectures and papers which span his whole
career, well organized thematically so that related
papers make up whole chapters, and chronologically so
that they progress from his earliest work to his latest.

If you read the whole book, by the time you get to the
final chapter, "Ecology and flexibility in urban civilization",
if it affects you the way it did me, it will blow your mind.

-monz

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...>
wrote:

> I second Carl. I 100% agree with the monz about the harm
> of automobiles of all sorts.....as soon as I can, I want to
> get a hybrid car. This doesn't solve some of the issues
> brought up, but at least pollution is lessened.
>
> The space issue is annoying.....cities grow in this fractal
> pattern around highways, which neccesitate new roads as the
> city grows further, which neccessitates new highways to
> connect growing trade routes.

When flying over America, it never ceases to amaze me
how the growth of American cities resembles the spread
of cancer in a mammalian body.

It most definitely does *not* look like this when you
fly over Europe and other parts of the world. In my
travels, the people i've met who told me their land is
just like America in this respect, are friends from Australia.

The dependence on fossil fuel is truly one of the most
wrong things that has happened in modern life. The other
big one is the prevalence of guns ... i firmly believe
that *all* of them should be melted down and the metal
used for other useful things.

Guns and capitalism both served a useful purpose in
the past, but that time is long gone now.

-monz

Carl,

I agree with much of what you say here, except that global warming is either
very real (the melting of the polar ice caps), or we are witnessing a hot
natural cycle. Most climatologists who are experts think the former, because
entering such a warming trend usually is not this rapid.

My own philosophy is that its not worth arguing about in terms of policy
making: hedge your bets and assume it's real, because the consequences, if it
is real (which it likely is), are devastating to the Earth.

Interestingly, the scientists who poo-poo global warming are Republicans who
have ties to the Bush Administration and the auto or fossil fuel industry.

-Aaron.

On Wednesday 05 October 2005 9:01 pm, Carl Lumma wrote:
> > > I certainly find it cool that I can recognize a full range
> > > of emotion in almost all mammals (I do not think this is
> > > anthropomorphizing). And I believe all life shares something
> > > in the nature of existence, survival, and thermodynamics.
> >
> > Maybe plants have minds too.
>
> I bet they'd respond if you yelled at them every day vs. if
> you lovingly handled them.
>
> > > > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> > > > > growing pains?
> > > >
> > > > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > > > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > > > The US however...
> > >
> > > It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
> >
> > Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.
>
> Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
> like you meant European countries have no excuse because
> they're older (?). I dunno... if European culture started
> with the fall of the Roman empire... how long did it take
> Native Americans to strike a balance?
>
> While the US is a country, with a federal government of
> steadily increasing power, it is a union of States. I would
> compare the US to the EU before I compared it to any one
> European country in this context. The cultural differences
> between States can be great, though perhaps not as great as
> those between European countries... But the shared currency,
> geographic sizes involved...
>
> > > I would like to see a return of certain fundamental
> > > industries (chiefly agriculture and electricity generation)
> > > to the local level.
> >
> > Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
> > self-organising system.
>
> Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful federal
> government is necessary may just be wrong.
>
> > > And I am concerned about the sweat shop problem. But in
> > > China as in Japan and South Korea, things are clearly
> > > improving.
> >
> > Interesting that you group these countries together. I would
> > think of China as pretty much 3rd world, while Japan absolutely
> > 1st world,
>
> I should have said, "But in China, as in Japan and South Korea
> before it, things are...".
>
> > > It certainly sounds that way. We're definitely dependent
> > > on agriculture now. We can't go back without a massive
> > > reduction in population. I do think we can gradually improve
> > > things by doing more local farming. Even bringing farms
> > > to city rooftops (which is happenning). Teaching gardening
> > > in elementary school. . .
> >
> > Good idea. but also we need good farming practise. Organic is
> > way better than non-organic. but still monocultures usually
> > and so not good. Try looking up a farmer called masanobu
> > Fukuoka. One of his books is The One Straw Revolution.
>
> I agree totally. I buy nearly 100% organic food (though I
> still eat out too much). And the thing about local gardens
> is that they are necessarily less 'monocultural' than large
> orchards and such.
>
> > > > > I think our experience is just another sort of
> > > > > measurement, albeit a very intricate one, and it's
> > > > > fallible just like other measurements.
> > > >
> > > > Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But
> > > > I would not like to think of my own experience as
> > > > "measurement".
> > >
> > > Ah, herein lies the rub.
> >
> > What is a rub?
>
> Sorry; it's an expression for "here's the hard part" or
> "here's the interesting part".
>
> > > > In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
> > > > somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
> > > > models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
> > > > we live in.
> > >
> > > I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
> > > shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
> > > "You are what you think".
> >
> > By "You are what you eat" I could agree if you mean your body is
> > composed of material made up of food you ingested. Is that what
> > you mean?
>
> I just mean that our choice of food affects our bodies. Thus,
> mind over matter.
>
> > As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist perspective
> > this is absurd. It would be like saying "You are what you see".
>
> Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
> if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
> in the brain.
>
> > For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
> > Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
> > one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
> > closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?
>
> I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
> structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
> beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.
>
> > > and I agree that it is not real in that it can be
> > > transformed by both the mind (positive/negative thinking)
> > > and the hands. If the 2nd nature is models,
> >
> > No. It's more like the first is models. The second is things
> > as they exist interdependantly. Models are only conceptual
> > constructions.
>
> This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
> stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
> other than that prescribed by models.
>
> > We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
> > perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
> > concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
> > how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
> > context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
> > get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
> > things really are.
>
> My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
> self-management. Some doctrines seem to posit that human
> beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
> are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
> not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
> of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
> way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
> something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
> valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).
>
> All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
> fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
> But it isn't very good epistemology.
>
> The two are completely separate. I can embrace mental
> clarity, enlightenment, as a path to my own future and
> better harmony in the world _without_ thinking it gives
> me access to special truth about the world around me.
>
> > > I think they really *are* reality, but they're
> > > necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean
> > > they're an incomplete description of reality, but
> > > rather that reality itself is incomplete!
> > >
> > >
> > > The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call existential truth.
> > > It's what can be done with the models you have, in your
> > > lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary 1st nature.
> >
> > Here it becomes not about doing.
>
> Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of the
> taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree of
> success).
>
> > > I mean, the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced
> > > it's caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful
> > > to the planet
> >
> > I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the
> > US policy on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.
>
> Oh, I think the pollution should be cut anyway, and Bush's
> backing out of the various accords is a big mess. But for
> all your science-bashing, global warming is a "science" with
> very shaky standing indeed.
>
> > > (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> > > societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
> > > their food, probably).
> >
> > Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
> > to be iceage. Things are not looking good.
>
> Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
> solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
> as recently as 1000 AD.
>
> > > The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is
> > > troublesome.
> >
> > Understanding complex systems makes this problem of decreasing
> > biodiversity seem absolutely devastating and dangerous.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > > Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
> > > humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
> > > here.
> >
> > God created it for us, right?
>
> They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
> telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
> all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
> just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
> this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
> eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
> of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.
>
> > > But I do note that there has been a massive reforestation
> > > of the Eastern US in the last 75 years.
> >
> > Native or cash crops?
>
> Native! It's wonderful. Not a lot has been written about it,
> but if you look at satellite photos, the whole Eastern 3rd of
> the nation is solid green. It's not as good as old growth (not
> even close), but it was almost barren in the '20s. There was
> a great article on kuro5hin (I'm pretty sure) on this but I
> can't find it now. Drat!
>
> > > If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
> > > might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
> > > problems, because they create the technology to solve them
> > > in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
> >
> > I don't mean to go on, but is he from the US?
>
> Yup.
>
> > This seems to be based on some kind of unreal imagination or
> > perhaps denial?
>
> It's based on the "law of accelerating returns". Not many
> folks believe him, but I do (more or less). He has some
> things wrong, but this much I agree with:
>
> () In information technology (he includes life, computers,
> telecommunications...), the power of the current generation
> of technology is used to create the next generation of tech.
> This leads to exponential growth. It may look like linear
> growth because you only tend to sample a small section of
> the curve, and because humans tend to think in linear ways.
> But it's really exponential. This is like Moore's law for
> everything. Actually I think puncuated equilibria is more
> like it, but the result is probably very neary exponential.
>
> () All significant technologies will soon be information
> technologies. So today when you buy a car, about 30% of
> the price is information, the design of the car, whereas
> 70% is raw metal, labor, and the rest. In the near future,
> nearly 100% of the value of objects will be informational.
> Like a DVD is already.
>
> Check out www.kurzweilai.net.
>
> -Carl
>
>
>
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> You don't have to be a member to post.
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

like bateson, hate cars and Pablo Soleri is a great example of an archetect who designs cities in a small area that is hostile to cars.
If he was building in new orleans , the levees themselves would be the foundations of buildings.
no waste of materials.
Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:

>Carl,
>
>I agree with much of what you say here, except that global warming is either >very real (the melting of the polar ice caps), or we are witnessing a hot >natural cycle. Most climatologists who are experts think the former, because >entering such a warming trend usually is not this rapid.
>
>My own philosophy is that its not worth arguing about in terms of policy >making: hedge your bets and assume it's real, because the consequences, if it >is real (which it likely is), are devastating to the Earth.
>
>Interestingly, the scientists who poo-poo global warming are Republicans who >have ties to the Bush Administration and the auto or fossil fuel industry.
>
>-Aaron.
>
>
>On Wednesday 05 October 2005 9:01 pm, Carl Lumma wrote:
> >
>>>>I certainly find it cool that I can recognize a full range
>>>>of emotion in almost all mammals (I do not think this is
>>>>anthropomorphizing). And I believe all life shares something
>>>>in the nature of existence, survival, and thermodynamics.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Maybe plants have minds too.
>>> >>>
>>I bet they'd respond if you yelled at them every day vs. if
>>you lovingly handled them.
>>
>> >>
>>>>>>So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
>>>>>>growing pains?
>>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>>I think it is different here. But, you may be right
>>>>>concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
>>>>>The US however...
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.
>>> >>>
>>Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
>>like you meant European countries have no excuse because
>>they're older (?). I dunno... if European culture started
>>with the fall of the Roman empire... how long did it take
>>Native Americans to strike a balance?
>>
>>While the US is a country, with a federal government of
>>steadily increasing power, it is a union of States. I would
>>compare the US to the EU before I compared it to any one
>>European country in this context. The cultural differences
>>between States can be great, though perhaps not as great as
>>those between European countries... But the shared currency,
>>geographic sizes involved...
>>
>> >>
>>>> I would like to see a return of certain fundamental
>>>>industries (chiefly agriculture and electricity generation)
>>>>to the local level.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
>>>self-organising system.
>>> >>>
>>Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful federal
>>government is necessary may just be wrong.
>>
>> >>
>>>>And I am concerned about the sweat shop problem. But in
>>>>China as in Japan and South Korea, things are clearly
>>>>improving.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Interesting that you group these countries together. I would
>>>think of China as pretty much 3rd world, while Japan absolutely
>>>1st world,
>>> >>>
>>I should have said, "But in China, as in Japan and South Korea
>>before it, things are...".
>>
>> >>
>>>>It certainly sounds that way. We're definitely dependent
>>>>on agriculture now. We can't go back without a massive
>>>>reduction in population. I do think we can gradually improve
>>>>things by doing more local farming. Even bringing farms
>>>>to city rooftops (which is happenning). Teaching gardening
>>>>in elementary school. . .
>>>> >>>>
>>>Good idea. but also we need good farming practise. Organic is
>>>way better than non-organic. but still monocultures usually
>>>and so not good. Try looking up a farmer called masanobu
>>>Fukuoka. One of his books is The One Straw Revolution.
>>> >>>
>>I agree totally. I buy nearly 100% organic food (though I
>>still eat out too much). And the thing about local gardens
>>is that they are necessarily less 'monocultural' than large
>>orchards and such.
>>
>> >>
>>>>>>I think our experience is just another sort of
>>>>>>measurement, albeit a very intricate one, and it's
>>>>>>fallible just like other measurements.
>>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>>Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But
>>>>>I would not like to think of my own experience as
>>>>>"measurement".
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>Ah, herein lies the rub.
>>>> >>>>
>>>What is a rub?
>>> >>>
>>Sorry; it's an expression for "here's the hard part" or
>>"here's the interesting part".
>>
>> >>
>>>>>In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
>>>>>somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
>>>>>models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
>>>>>we live in.
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
>>>>shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
>>>>"You are what you think".
>>>> >>>>
>>>By "You are what you eat" I could agree if you mean your body is
>>>composed of material made up of food you ingested. Is that what
>>>you mean?
>>> >>>
>>I just mean that our choice of food affects our bodies. Thus,
>>mind over matter.
>>
>> >>
>>>As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist perspective
>>>this is absurd. It would be like saying "You are what you see".
>>> >>>
>>Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
>>if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
>>in the brain.
>>
>> >>
>>>For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
>>>Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
>>>one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
>>>closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?
>>> >>>
>>I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
>>structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
>>beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.
>>
>> >>
>>>>and I agree that it is not real in that it can be
>>>>transformed by both the mind (positive/negative thinking)
>>>>and the hands. If the 2nd nature is models,
>>>> >>>>
>>>No. It's more like the first is models. The second is things
>>>as they exist interdependantly. Models are only conceptual
>>>constructions.
>>> >>>
>>This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
>>stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
>>other than that prescribed by models.
>>
>> >>
>>>We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
>>>perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
>>>concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
>>>how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
>>>context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
>>>get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
>>>things really are.
>>> >>>
>>My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
>>self-management. Some doctrines seem to posit that human
>>beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
>>are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
>>not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
>>of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
>>way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
>>something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
>>valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).
>>
>>All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
>>fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
>>But it isn't very good epistemology.
>>
>>The two are completely separate. I can embrace mental
>>clarity, enlightenment, as a path to my own future and
>>better harmony in the world _without_ thinking it gives
>>me access to special truth about the world around me.
>>
>> >>
>>>>I think they really *are* reality, but they're
>>>>necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean
>>>>they're an incomplete description of reality, but
>>>>rather that reality itself is incomplete!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call existential truth.
>>>>It's what can be done with the models you have, in your
>>>>lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary 1st nature.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Here it becomes not about doing.
>>> >>>
>>Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of the
>>taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree of
>>success).
>>
>> >>
>>>>I mean, the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced
>>>>it's caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful
>>>>to the planet
>>>> >>>>
>>>I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the
>>>US policy on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.
>>> >>>
>>Oh, I think the pollution should be cut anyway, and Bush's
>>backing out of the various accords is a big mess. But for
>>all your science-bashing, global warming is a "science" with
>>very shaky standing indeed.
>>
>> >>
>>>>(harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
>>>>societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
>>>>their food, probably).
>>>> >>>>
>>>Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
>>>to be iceage. Things are not looking good.
>>> >>>
>>Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
>>solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
>>as recently as 1000 AD.
>>
>> >>
>>>>The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is
>>>>troublesome.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Understanding complex systems makes this problem of decreasing
>>>biodiversity seem absolutely devastating and dangerous.
>>> >>>
>>Agreed.
>>
>> >>
>>>>Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
>>>>humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
>>>>here.
>>>> >>>>
>>>God created it for us, right?
>>> >>>
>>They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
>>telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
>>all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
>>just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
>>this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
>>eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
>>of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.
>>
>> >>
>>>>But I do note that there has been a massive reforestation
>>>>of the Eastern US in the last 75 years.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Native or cash crops?
>>> >>>
>>Native! It's wonderful. Not a lot has been written about it,
>>but if you look at satellite photos, the whole Eastern 3rd of
>>the nation is solid green. It's not as good as old growth (not
>>even close), but it was almost barren in the '20s. There was
>>a great article on kuro5hin (I'm pretty sure) on this but I
>>can't find it now. Drat!
>>
>> >>
>>>>If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
>>>>might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
>>>>problems, because they create the technology to solve them
>>>>in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
>>>> >>>>
>>>I don't mean to go on, but is he from the US?
>>> >>>
>>Yup.
>>
>> >>
>>>This seems to be based on some kind of unreal imagination or
>>>perhaps denial?
>>> >>>
>>It's based on the "law of accelerating returns". Not many
>>folks believe him, but I do (more or less). He has some
>>things wrong, but this much I agree with:
>>
>>() In information technology (he includes life, computers,
>>telecommunications...), the power of the current generation
>>of technology is used to create the next generation of tech.
>>This leads to exponential growth. It may look like linear
>>growth because you only tend to sample a small section of
>>the curve, and because humans tend to think in linear ways.
>>But it's really exponential. This is like Moore's law for
>>everything. Actually I think puncuated equilibria is more
>>like it, but the result is probably very neary exponential.
>>
>>() All significant technologies will soon be information
>>technologies. So today when you buy a car, about 30% of
>>the price is information, the design of the car, whereas
>>70% is raw metal, labor, and the rest. In the near future,
>>nearly 100% of the value of objects will be informational.
>>Like a DVD is already.
>>
>>Check out www.kurzweilai.net.
>>
>>-Carl
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>>
>>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>>
>>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>>
>>To post to the list, send to
>>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>>
>>You don't have to be a member to post.
>>
>>
>>Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>> >>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Hi Aaron,

> I agree with much of what you say here, except that global
> warming is either very real (the melting of the polar ice caps),
> or we are witnessing a hot natural cycle. Most climatologists
> who are experts think the former, because entering such a
> warming trend usually is not this rapid.

In one of these messages I acknowledge this, but state that
I think the latter isn't very convincing. It is a hard thing
to prove, though; perhaps impossible.

> My own philosophy is that its not worth arguing about in terms
> of policy making: hedge your bets and assume it's real,
> because the consequences, if it is real (which it likely is),
> are devastating to the Earth.

I know they're warning about it, but I'm not so sure. I
don't know if you mean devastating to the Earth or to
people (and some animals, probably). But animals and people
adapt. Catastrophic climate change is par for the course
on this planet. Yes I do think the pollution should be
curbed, but there are better reasons than global warming
to do so. It's also quite possible that if humans are to
blame that it's already too late to avoid catastrophic
change, even if we stopped polluting today.

The fever over global warming though is interesting from
a philosophical point of view. I have noticed that the
things people tend to get most upset about are the things
they personally feel the most powerless to correct. Global
warming is a dangerous preoccupation in this point of view.

> Interestingly, the scientists who poo-poo global warming
> are Republicans who have ties to the Bush Administration
> and the auto or fossil fuel industry.

Some of them are. Global warming climatology has many
hallmarks of an academic fad, with sloppy science that
nobody can get an audience to challenge. Like serialism,
or the popular idea in the liberal arts -- which hundreds
of papers take for granted these days -- that scientific
knowledge is valid only in the culture in which it arose.

-Carl

> like bateson, hate cars and Pablo Soleri is a great example of
> an archetect who designs cities in a small area that is hostile
> to cars. If he was building in new orleans , the levees
> themselves would be the foundations of buildings.
> no waste of materials.

Kraig - some friends and I have long wanted to make a trip out
to Arcosanti, but we haven't done it yet.

-Carl

during off season i think you can stay there for $20 f a night per room.
i went in april.
sometimes they are filled with classes though

Carl Lumma wrote:

>> like bateson, hate cars and Pablo Soleri is a great example of
>>an archetect who designs cities in a small area that is hostile
>>to cars. If he was building in new orleans , the levees
>>themselves would be the foundations of buildings.
>> no waste of materials.
>> >>
>
>Kraig - some friends and I have long wanted to make a trip out
>to Arcosanti, but we haven't done it yet.
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

my favorite link on the subject from the late 90's
http://tmgnow.com/repository/global/planetophysical.html

Carl Lumma wrote:

>Hi Aaron,
>
> >
>>I agree with much of what you say here, except that global
>>warming is either very real (the melting of the polar ice caps),
>>or we are witnessing a hot natural cycle. Most climatologists
>>who are experts think the former, because entering such a
>>warming trend usually is not this rapid.
>> >>
>
>In one of these messages I acknowledge this, but state that
>I think the latter isn't very convincing. It is a hard thing
>to prove, though; perhaps impossible.
>
> >
>>My own philosophy is that its not worth arguing about in terms
>>of policy making: hedge your bets and assume it's real,
>>because the consequences, if it is real (which it likely is),
>>are devastating to the Earth.
>> >>
>
>I know they're warning about it, but I'm not so sure. I
>don't know if you mean devastating to the Earth or to
>people (and some animals, probably). But animals and people
>adapt. Catastrophic climate change is par for the course
>on this planet. Yes I do think the pollution should be
>curbed, but there are better reasons than global warming
>to do so. It's also quite possible that if humans are to
>blame that it's already too late to avoid catastrophic
>change, even if we stopped polluting today.
>
>The fever over global warming though is interesting from
>a philosophical point of view. I have noticed that the
>things people tend to get most upset about are the things
>they personally feel the most powerless to correct. Global
>warming is a dangerous preoccupation in this point of view.
>
> >
>>Interestingly, the scientists who poo-poo global warming
>>are Republicans who have ties to the Bush Administration
>>and the auto or fossil fuel industry.
>> >>
>
>Some of them are. Global warming climatology has many
>hallmarks of an academic fad, with sloppy science that
>nobody can get an audience to challenge. Like serialism,
>or the popular idea in the liberal arts -- which hundreds
>of papers take for granted these days -- that scientific
>knowledge is valid only in the culture in which it arose.
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

monz wrote:

> These "real" bike-paths are being built in Canada and
> in cities all over northern Europe ... but of course
> in America they would interfere too much with the flow
> of automobile traffic (he said sarcastically).

They're commonplace in China. But then, without property rights you can always widen the streets if you need to.

You'll also find basic toilets in the countryside, and flush toilets in the cities with minimal sewage treatment. Make sure you boil tap water before you drink it.

Graham

> > > > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the same
> > > > > growing pains?
> > > >
> > > > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > > > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > > > The US however...
> > >
> > > It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
> >
> > Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.
>
> Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
> like you meant European countries have no excuse because
> they're older (?).

Yes. Well, no, just that it is not due to the same reason as before
of being young ethnoi. It's different now.

> I dunno... if European culture started
> with the fall of the Roman empire

???? What would imply that? Do you think there was no culture in
Europe before and during the Roman empire? Celtic culture for
example goes back for thoasands of years. By the times the Romans
had their empire they were terrified of Celts! So for example the
Irish as an ehnoi have a history going way back even before they
arrived in Ireland. And anyway they were in ireland before the Roman
empire too. In Europe there are many many ethnoi, and really our
history goes back many thoasands of years. Some ethnoi are younger,
yes, and some older. And by the way in England we still visit 5000
year old temples.

> While the US is a country, with a federal government of
> steadily increasing power, it is a union of States. I would
> compare the US to the EU before I compared it to any one
> European country in this context.

I would really doubt if the inhabitants of the different states of
the US would count as different ethnoi by Gumilev. In Europe the
different contries have different languages, different customs,
different very long histories, different physical features (if you
are experienced enough you can often tell the difference between a
Dutchman, Frenchman, Swede and so on just from looking at their
faces!

> > Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
> > self-organising system.
>
> Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful federal
> government is necessary may just be wrong.

Another reason why the EU thing is not good. Nowadays far too many
things are becoming centralised in Europe. We evolved these
different country sizes very naturally. That whole "edge of chaos"
thing. Now as more power is centralised we get to the "frozen" side
of unwealdy systems.

> > > > > I think our experience is just another sort of
> > > > > measurement, albeit a very intricate one, and it's
> > > > > fallible just like other measurements.
> > > >
> > > > Ooh! Well, sure I will respect your use of language. But
> > > > I would not like to think of my own experience as
> > > > "measurement".
> > >
> > > Ah, herein lies the rub.
> >
> > What is a rub?
>
> Sorry; it's an expression for "here's the hard part" or
> "here's the interesting part".

Right, got it!

> > > > In Buddhism we might say that your ordinary life is also
> > > > somewhat comparible to an hallicination. Yes, we live with
> > > > models and all that. In that way, we do create the reality
> > > > we live in.
> > >
> > > I totally agree in a sense. "You are what you eat" has been
> > > shown by science, and recently (via brain scans) so has
> > > "You are what you think".
> >
> > By "You are what you eat" I could agree if you mean your body is
> > composed of material made up of food you ingested. Is that what
> > you mean?
>
> I just mean that our choice of food affects our bodies. Thus,
> mind over matter.

Right yes, of course. And we have a saying in Buddhism "Body-mind
conditions conciousness, and conciousness conditions body-mind".

> > As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist perspective
> > this is absurd. It would be like saying "You are what you see".
>
> Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
> if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
> in the brain.

Hmm. Well, that's the data but what is the meaning? I would say, sad
thoughts may then lead to the arinsing of sad emotion. But still, is
that "me"? And in science there seems to be much focus on the brain.
Again I think it is this linear thinking again hat they are looking
for a linear chain of causes. They always want one final cause. So,
the brain is the centre of it all. That's where the "mind" is. And
then biologically, the final cause is the DNA. I think they are
barking up the wrong tree. No, more than that, they are using the
wrong dog to bark!

> > For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
> > Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
> > one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
> > closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?
>
> I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
> structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
> beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.

Do you think you are your brain? We might think that the brain,
along with the body, is perhaps a medium of the mind, or of the
consciousness. Well, it gets complicated, especially dealing in a
specific way with the terminology. But anyway, I would not limit
one's mind to one's brain.

> > > and I agree that it is not real in that it can be
> > > transformed by both the mind (positive/negative thinking)
> > > and the hands. If the 2nd nature is models,
> >
> > No. It's more like the first is models. The second is things
> > as they exist interdependantly. Models are only conceptual
> > constructions.
>
> This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
> stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
> other than that prescribed by models.

What does that last sentace mean exactly? And for models, I get "a
description or analogy used to help visualize something ", "an
example for imitation or emulation", "a system of postulates, data,
and inferences presented as a mathematical description of an entity
or state of affairs" and so on. It would seem to me like some kind
of computer that for example is programed to recognise certain
features in reference to its, and then takes what it has to be the
actual truth of the thing it is observing! Things have inner being
though! Life itself is not conceptual! Humans use concepts. Life is
not made of concepts!

> > We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
> > perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
> > concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
> > how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
> > context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
> > get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
> > things really are.
>
> My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
> self-management.

Sorry that went over my head.

Some doctrines seem to posit that human
> beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
> are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
> not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
> of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
> way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
> something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
> valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).

I could imagine a group of blind people meeting a seeing person. The
seeing person explains a few things to them about what he can see
(in case you are wondering, I am certainly one of the blind people!)
They have a chat amongst themselves, and firmly decide that the man
must be out of his mind or have a particularly wierd imagination to
be talking such nonsense. He has no idea of the truth!

> All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
> fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
> But it isn't very good epistemology.

I don't know the word but my dictionary tells me it is about a
system of knowledge? We do have a system of knowledge in Buddhism,
but, that is secondary. From what I've heard it may be similar to
phenomenology? (The Buddhist approach I mean).

> The two are completely separate. I can embrace mental
> clarity, enlightenment, as a path to my own future and
> better harmony in the world _without_ thinking it gives
> me access to special truth about the world around me.
>
> > > I think they really *are* reality, but they're
> > > necessarily forever incomplete. This wouldn't mean
> > > they're an incomplete description of reality, but
> > > rather that reality itself is incomplete!
>
>
> > > The 3rd nature sounds like what I'd call existential truth.
> > > It's what can be done with the models you have, in your
> > > lifetime, if you're free of the delusionary 1st nature.
> >
> > Here it becomes not about doing.
>
> Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of the
> taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree of
> success).

You practice meditation? Or work with the internal energies in your
body/mind?

> > > I mean, the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced
> > > it's caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful
> > > to the planet
> >
> > I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the
> > US policy on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.
>
> Oh, I think the pollution should be cut anyway, and Bush's
> backing out of the various accords is a big mess. But for
> all your science-bashing, global warming is a "science" with
> very shaky standing indeed.

Again, please refer to Gaia theory. I wonder who funds the
scientists who say that this is not a problem.

>
> > > (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> > > societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
> > > their food, probably).
> >
> > Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
> > to be iceage. Things are not looking good.
>
> Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
> solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
> as recently as 1000 AD.

My concern wa not humans. Ice age is what we (we being the Gaia)
need!! The trouble is, we are going in the opposite direction! It
seems quite likely that we may end up in a "steady hot state" that
may be irreversible. Please refer to Gaia theory.

> > > The apparent decrease in the diversity of life is
> > > troublesome.
> >
> > Understanding complex systems makes this problem of decreasing
> > biodiversity seem absolutely devastating and dangerous.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > > Some futurists see the Earth as becoming a human colony, and
> > > humans as inheriting the fortune of all evolution's progress
> > > here.
> >
> > God created it for us, right?
>
> They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
> telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
> all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
> just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
> this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
> eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
> of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.

Give me some money and I'll make you a big profit. Oh, now it's time
to give you back your money? Well, I can't quite do that yet -
sorry. But give me a load more money and I'll give your money back
next week with an even bigger profit! And so on. And the person just
keeps on giving, even though they might be suspicious. But they are
led on by their greed, and do not want to face the fact that they
may have done the wrong thing in the first place.
Sorry, really go to go now.
Best wishes
Justin.

> > > > > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the
> > > > > > same growing pains?
> > > > >
> > > > > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > > > > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > > > > The US however...
> > > >
> > > > It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
> > >
> > > Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.
> >
> > Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
> > like you meant European countries have no excuse because
> > they're older (?).
>
> Yes. Well, no, just that it is not due to the same reason as
> before of being young ethnoi. It's different now.
>
> > I dunno... if European culture started with the fall of
> > the Roman empire
>
> ???? What would imply that? Do you think there was no culture in
> Europe before and during the Roman empire? Celtic culture for
> example goes back for thoasands of years. By the times the Romans
> had their empire they were terrified of Celts! So for example the
> Irish as an ehnoi have a history going way back even before they
> arrived in Ireland. And anyway they were in ireland before the
> Roman empire too. In Europe there are many many ethnoi, and
> really our history goes back many thoasands of years. Some ethnoi
> are younger, yes, and some older. And by the way in England we
> still visit 5000 year old temples.

Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same fate
as native Americans did in the colonial period at the hands of
the Empire? The Romans were terrified of a lot of things, but
their technology must have had the same worldview-changing
effect in Gaul as that of the English in North America. In
other words, they were starting fresh after that experience. (?)

Incidentally, I've been to some of the henge and tor sites, as
well as to the Roman stuff in Bath.

> I would really doubt if the inhabitants of the different states
> of the US would count as different ethnoi by Gumilev. In Europe
> the different contries have different languages, different
> customs, different very long histories, different physical
> features (if you are experienced enough you can often tell the
> difference between a Dutchman, Frenchman, Swede and so on just
> from looking at their faces!

Just try understanding someone from Boston or New York, or
the South (we did have a civil war recently, remember). The
area I'm from in Pennsylvania was an almost entirely isolated
settlement of German-speaking people from around 1700 until
the mid 20th century. Many of my friends parents still speak
their unique (and totally incomprehensible to Germans) language.
Here in California, Spanish is the native language of a huge
portion of the population, and almost everyone can speak a
little. Aside from the significant portion of young Americans
who have moved from their home State by choice, one could easily
tell a Californian from a Pennsylvanian. And the political
differences are even more striking. But I agree the cultural
differences between EU countries are more intense than those
between US States.

> > > Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
> > > self-organising system.
> >
> > Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful
> > federal government is necessary may just be wrong.
>
> Another reason why the EU thing is not good.

Yes.

> > > As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist
> > > perspective this is absurd. It would be like saying
> > > "You are what you see".
> >
> > Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
> > if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
> > in the brain.
>
> Hmm. Well, that's the data but what is the meaning? I would
> say, sad thoughts may then lead to the arinsing of sad emotion.

Yes. Thinking about something makes it easier to think about
that thing in the future, and this includes emotions. That's
all. It's just neat that we can see it. The power of
positive (or negative) thinking is very real. Severe depression
can actually cause parts of the brain to atrophy and die over
a period of years.

> But still, is that "me"?

No, I didn't mean it like that. It is not you.

> And in science there seems to be much focus on the brain.
> Again I think it is this linear thinking again that they are
> looking for a linear chain of causes. They always want one
> final cause. So, the brain is the centre of it all. That's
> where the "mind" is.

Actually it's now understood that feedback involving the
sensory/motor systems is inseparable from the the functioning
of the brain. What we call "hearing" and "seeing" are not
passive observations but interactive processes. This was
not widely believed 10 years ago when I was studying artifical
intelligence, so that's good progress. And I'm gratified to
have called this particular oversight (as I'm sure many others
did). So 'mind is in body' is quite true.

> And then biologically, the final cause is the DNA. I think
> they are barking up the wrong tree. No, more than that, they
> are using the wrong dog to bark!

DNA is clearly a major player, but the idea of DNA as a
"blueprint for life" was really something started by the press.
Biologists never believed that DNA alone would allow them to
build the corresponding animal. It functions only in a
complex system. Wolfram argues that DNA functions much like
the initial conditions for certain types of cellular automata.
It's also now known that "junk DNA" isn't junk at all. Though
it is possible that junk base pairs might have accumulated in
that way, it seemed very unlikely. Even the singer of the
reggae band Midnight knew this, though he has no apparent
biology credentials.

> > > For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
> > > Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
> > > one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
> > > closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?
> >
> > I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
> > structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
> > beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.
>
> Do you think you are your brain?

No no. I'm not sure what I am. I'm a pattern -- of thoughts
in my mind, of molecules in space -- that persists over time.

> We might think that the brain, along with the body, is perhaps
> a medium of the mind, or of the consciousness.

Yes, I do think that. Also the environment I'm in is a very
real part of my mind. If I leave a CD out so I don't forget
to return it to my friend... if you put me in a dark room
for a long time, my mental faculties will slowly decay...

> > This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
> > stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
> > other than that prescribed by models.
>
> What does that last sentace mean exactly? And for models, I
> get "a description or analogy used to help visualize
> something ", "an example for imitation or emulation",
> "a system of postulates, data, and inferences presented as a
> mathematical description of an entity or state of affairs"
> and so on.

Models are basically algorithms that compress information.
I think they are the fundamental substance of the universe.

> It would seem to me like some kind of computer that for
> example is programed to recognise certain features in
> reference to its, and then takes what it has to be the actual
> truth of the thing it is observing! Things have inner being
> though! Life itself is not conceptual! Humans use concepts.
> Life is not made of concepts!

Everything is just patterns, from elementary particles on up
to things like me.

> > > We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
> > > perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
> > > concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
> > > how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
> > > context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
> > > get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
> > > things really are.
> >
> > My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
> > self-management.
>
> Sorry that went over my head.

Epistemology is the study of truth, or of how we know reality.
By self-management, I mean, the study of how we, as humans, can
live as happily as possible. More or less.

> > Some doctrines seem to posit that human
> > beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
> > are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
> > not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
> > of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
> > way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
> > something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
> > valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).
>
> I could imagine a group of blind people meeting a seeing
> person. The seeing person explains a few things to them about
> what he can see (in case you are wondering, I am certainly
> one of the blind people!) They have a chat amongst
> themselves, and firmly decide that the man must be out of
> his mind or have a particularly wierd imagination to be
> talking such nonsense. He has no idea of the truth!

A good analogy, but any philosophy could claim to represent
the seeing person.

It's just like with drugs. I have a model that tells me my
ecstatic visions are more likely the result of taking drugs
than of percieving something deep about the universe (though
it doesn't rule out that both are happening). Likewise, I
have a model that tells me the concept of nothingness is
particularly handy in guiding my human mind through life,
but doesn't necessarily correspond to any deep truth about
the universe.

> > All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
> > fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
> > But it isn't very good epistemology.
>
> I don't know the word but my dictionary tells me it is about
> a system of knowledge? We do have a system of knowledge in
> Buddhism, but, that is secondary. From what I've heard it
> may be similar to phenomenology? (The Buddhist approach I mean).

The Buddhist approach does seem similar in some ways to
phenomenology, which is a particular kind of epistemology.
Epistemology is thinking about what we will accept as true,
how we can know reality, is there a "reality" outside of
our experience as humans, etc. Kant is the big Western
name in epistemology (I was never a fan of his though).

Here's a nice way to think about it: why should I bother to
leave a Will or Trust to bequeath my stuff to my family and
friends (let's say it costs a fair amount of money for the
lawyer)? Once I'm dead, do they carry on? Aren't they just
images in my stream of experience? But hold on, it does seem
that I'm a lot like them. In fact, a model which says I'm
a member of this species of humans, some humans die and the
rest carry on, explains an awful lot. So I can actually use
the model to escape my own senses. I can use the model to
predict the future. I will die, my senses will shut off (or
they will change in a way I can't predict), but my friends
and family will, all else being equal, be out of contact
with me (as I currently am anyway) but still here to enjoy
my stuff.

> > > Here it becomes not about doing.
> >
> > Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of
> > the taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree
> > of success).
>
> You practice meditation? Or work with the internal energies
> in your body/mind?

I have actually practiced zazen on several occasions at the
Buddhist temple here in Berkeley, and on several occasions
on my own. I think it does help with not doing, and I should
be, ahem, doing more of it. But not doing can just be
approached very simply and without fanfare in the day-to-day,
is the way I read Lao Tzu (my favorite philospher, for sure).

> > > > (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> > > > societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
> > > > their food, probably).
> > >
> > > Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
> > > to be iceage. Things are not looking good.
> >
> > Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
> > solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
> > as recently as 1000 AD.
>
> My concern wa not humans. Ice age is what we (we being the Gaia)
> need!! The trouble is, we are going in the opposite direction!

We're still coming out of an ice age, so we've been going in
the opposite direction for a while. I don't think humans will
delay an ice age significantly, in Gaia time.

> It seems quite likely that we may end up in a "steady hot
> state" that may be irreversible. Please refer to Gaia theory.

I'll check it out, but I'm doubtful if it predicts this
outcome.

> > They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
> > telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
> > all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
> > just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
> > this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
> > eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
> > of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.
>
> Give me some money and I'll make you a big profit. Oh, now
> it's time to give you back your money? Well, I can't quite
> do that yet - sorry. But give me a load more money and I'll
> give your money back next week with an even bigger profit!
> And so on.

Yes, this is a good counter-argument.

> Sorry, really go to go now.

Yes, this is time-consuming, isn't it? Still, a pleasure,

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> > > > > > > So perhaps Western culture is merely undergoing the
> > > > > > > same growing pains?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think it is different here. But, you may be right
> > > > > > concerning the US. In Europe we are not new Ethnoi.
> > > > > > The US however...
> > > > >
> > > > > It does seem that we're more 'together' than the EU.
> > > >
> > > > Why compare the US to the EU? The US is a country.
> > >
> > > Oh, I thought you were drawing the comparison. But it looks
> > > like you meant European countries have no excuse because
> > > they're older (?).
> >
> > Yes. Well, no, just that it is not due to the same reason as
> > before of being young ethnoi. It's different now.
> >
> > > I dunno... if European culture started with the fall of
> > > the Roman empire
> >
> > ???? What would imply that? Do you think there was no culture in
> > Europe before and during the Roman empire? Celtic culture for
> > example goes back for thoasands of years. By the times the Romans
> > had their empire they were terrified of Celts! So for example the
> > Irish as an ehnoi have a history going way back even before they
> > arrived in Ireland. And anyway they were in ireland before the
> > Roman empire too. In Europe there are many many ethnoi, and
> > really our history goes back many thoasands of years. Some ethnoi
> > are younger, yes, and some older. And by the way in England we
> > still visit 5000 year old temples.
>
> Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same fate
> as native Americans did in the colonial period at the hands of
> the Empire?

I believe not. One big thing is the difference between an agricultural
society conquering another Agricultural society (eg England vrs India)
and an agricultural society conquering a unter gatherer society
(England vrs Australia). Sorry, but I must be so brief and leave out
many things due to lack of time! By the way the Romans never conquered
Scotland. Even in England we had our culture still. Surely same all
over. Influences yes. Anihilation no.

The Romans were terrified of a lot of things, but
> their technology must have had the same worldview-changing
> effect in Gaul as that of the English in North America. In
> other words, they were starting fresh after that experience. (?)
>
> Incidentally, I've been to some of the henge and tor sites, as
> well as to the Roman stuff in Bath.

Great

>
> > I would really doubt if the inhabitants of the different states
> > of the US would count as different ethnoi by Gumilev. In Europe
> > the different contries have different languages, different
> > customs, different very long histories, different physical
> > features (if you are experienced enough you can often tell the
> > difference between a Dutchman, Frenchman, Swede and so on just
> > from looking at their faces!
>
> Just try understanding someone from Boston or New York, or
> the South (we did have a civil war recently, remember). The
> area I'm from in Pennsylvania was an almost entirely isolated
> settlement of German-speaking people from around 1700 until
> the mid 20th century. Many of my friends parents still speak
> their unique (and totally incomprehensible to Germans) language.
> Here in California, Spanish is the native language of a huge
> portion of the population, and almost everyone can speak a
> little. Aside from the significant portion of young Americans
> who have moved from their home State by choice, one could easily
> tell a Californian from a Pennsylvanian. And the political
> differences are even more striking. But I agree the cultural
> differences between EU countries are more intense than those
> between US States.

Thank you for informing me. Good to know. Though also this could be
seen as the continuance of the European ethnoi actually. And as they
meet, some may "die" (not the people that make them up, but the
ethnoi, which are superorganisms) and also new ethnoi may emerge. I am
suggesting that there is maybe a US ethnos in infancy. Of course not
as simple as that, as there are many ethnoi there also. Or maybe it is
that there is a US superethnos, with it's various ethnoi and subethnoi
below it.

>
> > > > Local is definetly good. Decentralised, like any healthy
> > > > self-organising system.
> > >
> > > Exactly!! It seems to me the assupmtion that a powerful
> > > federal government is necessary may just be wrong.
> >
> > Another reason why the EU thing is not good.
>
> Yes.
>
> > > > As for "You are what you think", from a Buddhist
> > > > perspective this is absurd. It would be like saying
> > > > "You are what you see".
> > >
> > > Ah, I see where you're going with this. I just meant that,
> > > if you think sad thoughts all the time, this can now be seen
> > > in the brain.
> >
> > Hmm. Well, that's the data but what is the meaning? I would
> > say, sad thoughts may then lead to the arinsing of sad emotion.
>
> Yes. Thinking about something makes it easier to think about
> that thing in the future, and this includes emotions. That's
> all. It's just neat that we can see it. The power of
> positive (or negative) thinking is very real. Severe depression
> can actually cause parts of the brain to atrophy and die over
> a period of years.
>
> > But still, is that "me"?
>
> No, I didn't mean it like that. It is not you.
>
> > And in science there seems to be much focus on the brain.
> > Again I think it is this linear thinking again that they are
> > looking for a linear chain of causes. They always want one
> > final cause. So, the brain is the centre of it all. That's
> > where the "mind" is.
>
> Actually it's now understood that feedback involving the
> sensory/motor systems is inseparable from the the functioning
> of the brain.

All nervous system though. If you want to focus solely on the body,
then at least consider other things too such as the immune system.
Very complex.

What we call "hearing" and "seeing" are not
> passive observations but interactive processes. This was
> not widely believed 10 years ago when I was studying artifical
> intelligence, so that's good progress. And I'm gratified to
> have called this particular oversight (as I'm sure many others
> did). So 'mind is in body' is quite true.
>
> > And then biologically, the final cause is the DNA. I think
> > they are barking up the wrong tree. No, more than that, they
> > are using the wrong dog to bark!
>
> DNA is clearly a major player, but the idea of DNA as a
> "blueprint for life" was really something started by the press.
> Biologists never believed that DNA alone would allow them to
> build the corresponding animal. It functions only in a
> complex system. Wolfram argues that DNA functions much like
> the initial conditions for certain types of cellular automata.
> It's also now known that "junk DNA" isn't junk at all. Though
> it is possible that junk base pairs might have accumulated in
> that way, it seemed very unlikely. Even the singer of the
> reggae band Midnight knew this, though he has no apparent
> biology credentials.

Good good.

>
> > > > For us what we think, is just another sense perception.
> > > > Thoughts arise in the mind. Then they pass away. To think
> > > > one IS one's thought would be ridiculous. Look at them
> > > > closely. Watch them. See them. Are they "you"?
> > >
> > > I just meant that thoughts have the power to change the
> > > structure of the brain. Freedom from identifying with one's
> > > beliefs, freedom from obcession, is indicated here.
> >
> > Do you think you are your brain?
>
> No no. I'm not sure what I am. I'm a pattern -- of thoughts
> in my mind, of molecules in space -- that persists over time.

Sounds good.

>
> > We might think that the brain, along with the body, is perhaps
> > a medium of the mind, or of the consciousness.
>
> Yes, I do think that. Also the environment I'm in is a very
> real part of my mind. If I leave a CD out so I don't forget
> to return it to my friend... if you put me in a dark room
> for a long time, my mental faculties will slowly decay...

Usually. Even if you go alone to a cave for long enough most people
would go mad. On the other hands Daoists and the like might use it as
their training ground.

>
> > > This is where we disagree. I think models are the primary
> > > stuff of the universe, that there is no physical reality
> > > other than that prescribed by models.
> >
> > What does that last sentace mean exactly? And for models, I
> > get "a description or analogy used to help visualize
> > something ", "an example for imitation or emulation",
> > "a system of postulates, data, and inferences presented as a
> > mathematical description of an entity or state of affairs"
> > and so on.
>
> Models are basically algorithms that compress information.
> I think they are the fundamental substance of the universe.

If we compress the universe surely we don't have the universe any
more? What's the name for one of those things which cannot be
compressed any further? Maybe the universe is that.

>
> > It would seem to me like some kind of computer that for
> > example is programed to recognise certain features in
> > reference to its, and then takes what it has to be the actual
> > truth of the thing it is observing! Things have inner being
> > though! Life itself is not conceptual! Humans use concepts.
> > Life is not made of concepts!
>
> Everything is just patterns, from elementary particles on up
> to things like me.

Sounds good.

> > > > We're not talking about concepts here. Our conceptual way of
> > > > perceiving is the 1st nature. In Buddhism you see we like
> > > > concepts and all that, but, we think they will not get us to
> > > > how things really are. They do have their use, and in our
> > > > context are used especially to remove doubts so hat you can
> > > > get on with the mind training and so actually experience how
> > > > things really are.
> > >
> > > My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
> > > self-management.
> >
> > Sorry that went over my head.
>
> Epistemology is the study of truth, or of how we know reality.
> By self-management, I mean, the study of how we, as humans, can
> live as happily as possible. More or less.

In Buddhism we would suggest that the two go hand in hand. Attaining
ultimate truth frees one from suffering. And suffering is freed bby
realixation of the untimate truth. ?

>
> > > Some doctrines seem to posit that human
> > > beings have a priviledged view of reality. That our egos
> > > are a valid but false way of percieving reality (they are
> > > not valid), that our concepts are a valid but false way
> > > of percieving reality (they are the only valid and true
> > > way), and that divine experiences of mental clarity or
> > > something similar (religious experiences) are a the only
> > > valid and true way of percieving reality (they are neither).
> >
> > I could imagine a group of blind people meeting a seeing
> > person. The seeing person explains a few things to them about
> > what he can see (in case you are wondering, I am certainly
> > one of the blind people!) They have a chat amongst
> > themselves, and firmly decide that the man must be out of
> > his mind or have a particularly wierd imagination to be
> > talking such nonsense. He has no idea of the truth!
>
> A good analogy, but any philosophy could claim to represent
> the seeing person.

The important point is the the seeing person is not analogous to a
philosophy. Not at all. To, what would we say? A mode of being
perhaps. A level of percetion, of realization. It is not on the level
of philosophy. If those people try to explain what they know, you may
descibe their speech as philosophy. Equally it may appear as poetry.
Or whatever. As the Dao De Jing says (Lao Tsu) The Dao cannot be
spoken. You could say the philosophy could be the bind man recounting
what the seeing man has told him, for example.

>
> It's just like with drugs. I have a model that tells me my
> ecstatic visions are more likely the result of taking drugs
> than of percieving something deep about the universe (though
> it doesn't rule out that both are happening). Likewise, I
> have a model that tells me the concept of nothingness is
> particularly handy in guiding my human mind through life,
> but doesn't necessarily correspond to any deep truth about
> the universe.

Absolutely. That's why we're not terribly fussed about the concept.
Practice is infinitely more important.

>
> > > All the mental clarity / freedom from concepts stuff is
> > > fantastic for self-management. For living better, etc.
> > > But it isn't very good epistemology.
> >
> > I don't know the word but my dictionary tells me it is about
> > a system of knowledge? We do have a system of knowledge in
> > Buddhism, but, that is secondary. From what I've heard it
> > may be similar to phenomenology? (The Buddhist approach I mean).
>
> The Buddhist approach does seem similar in some ways to
> phenomenology, which is a particular kind of epistemology.
> Epistemology is thinking about what we will accept as true,
> how we can know reality, is there a "reality" outside of
> our experience as humans, etc. Kant is the big Western
> name in epistemology (I was never a fan of his though).
>
> Here's a nice way to think about it: why should I bother to
> leave a Will or Trust to bequeath my stuff to my family and
> friends (let's say it costs a fair amount of money for the
> lawyer)? Once I'm dead, do they carry on? Aren't they just
> images in my stream of experience? But hold on, it does seem
> that I'm a lot like them. In fact, a model which says I'm
> a member of this species of humans, some humans die and the
> rest carry on, explains an awful lot. So I can actually use
> the model to escape my own senses. I can use the model to
> predict the future. I will die, my senses will shut off (or
> they will change in a way I can't predict), but my friends
> and family will, all else being equal, be out of contact
> with me (as I currently am anyway) but still here to enjoy
> my stuff.
>
> > > > Here it becomes not about doing.
> > >
> > > Yes, that's what I meant. I'm very much a practitioner of
> > > the taoist version of this concept (with a debateable degree
> > > of success).
> >
> > You practice meditation? Or work with the internal energies
> > in your body/mind?
>
> I have actually practiced zazen on several occasions at the
> Buddhist temple here in Berkeley, and on several occasions
> on my own. I think it does help with not doing, and I should
> be, ahem, doing more of it. But not doing can just be
> approached very simply and without fanfare in the day-to-day,
> is the way I read Lao Tzu (my favorite philospher, for sure).
>
> > > > > (harmful to poorly-constructed coastal cities and
> > > > > societies that rely on specific areas to grow 99% of
> > > > > their food, probably).
> > > >
> > > > Very very bg problem. The healthy state for our planet seems
> > > > to be iceage. Things are not looking good.
> > >
> > > Oh, humans have weathered them before. Why, Britain freezes
> > > solid every time the Gulf Stream shifts, which it apparently
> > > as recently as 1000 AD.
> >
> > My concern wa not humans. Ice age is what we (we being the Gaia)
> > need!! The trouble is, we are going in the opposite direction!
>
> We're still coming out of an ice age, so we've been going in
> the opposite direction for a while. I don't think humans will
> delay an ice age significantly, in Gaia time.
>
> > It seems quite likely that we may end up in a "steady hot
> > state" that may be irreversible. Please refer to Gaia theory.
>
> I'll check it out, but I'm doubtful if it predicts this
> outcome.

What I said was what I heard at the Schumacher college, from news got
from the latest models. They are really hoping the models are wrong!
By the way it's not their models. But they are very good indeed down
their. One of their teachers worked a lot on Gaia theory. Another,
Brian Goodwin, was at the Santa Fe Institute working on complexity.
They are top people. Very good people.

>
> > > They just think that stuff like fusion, hydrogen power,
> > > telecommunications, intelligent computers, etc. will solve
> > > all the problems in the next generation or so. Technology
> > > just has to get to critical mass to solve everythnig in
> > > this view, but to get it there you have to break a few
> > > eggs. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree. I'm thinking
> > > of people like Moravec and Kurzweil.
> >
> > Give me some money and I'll make you a big profit. Oh, now
> > it's time to give you back your money? Well, I can't quite
> > do that yet - sorry. But give me a load more money and I'll
> > give your money back next week with an even bigger profit!
> > And so on.
>
> Yes, this is a good counter-argument.
>
> > Sorry, really go to go now.
>
> Yes, this is time-consuming, isn't it? Still, a pleasure,

Agreed on both points!
Best wishes
Justin.
And, sorry but I may not be able to respond again. But if you want to
email me privately ever then do.

>
> -Carl

> > > We might think that the brain, along with the body, is
> > > perhaps a medium of the mind, or of the consciousness.
> >
> > Yes, I do think that. Also the environment I'm in is a very
> > real part of my mind. If I leave a CD out so I don't forget
> > to return it to my friend... if you put me in a dark room
> > for a long time, my mental faculties will slowly decay...
>
> Usually. Even if you go alone to a cave for long enough most
> people would go mad. On the other hands Daoists and the like
> might use it as their training ground.

I'd thought of that just after I hit "send". A bad example
I suppose!

> > Models are basically algorithms that compress information.
> > I think they are the fundamental substance of the universe.
>
> If we compress the universe surely we don't have the universe
> any more?

Compress isn't eliminate. The Newtonian laws of gravity
compresses a lot of what we see in the sky a few equations.
It has limitations, but when it works it works well.

> What's the name for one of those things which cannot
> be compressed any further? Maybe the universe is that.

Irreducible? Anyway, there are arguments that say most
things in the universe are irreducible, but not all are,
and this argument doesn't take into account "lossy" compression.

> > > > My problem here is the conflation epistemology and
> > > > self-management.
> > >
> > > Sorry that went over my head.
> >
> > Epistemology is the study of truth, or of how we know reality.
> > By self-management, I mean, the study of how we, as humans, can
> > live as happily as possible. More or less.
>
> In Buddhism we would suggest that the two go hand in hand.
//
> > It's just like with drugs. I have a model that tells me my
> > ecstatic visions are more likely the result of taking drugs
> > than of percieving something deep about the universe (though
> > it doesn't rule out that both are happening). Likewise, I
> > have a model that tells me the concept of nothingness is
> > particularly handy in guiding my human mind through life,
> > but doesn't necessarily correspond to any deep truth about
> > the universe.
>
> Absolutely. That's why we're not terribly fussed about the
> concept. Practice is infinitely more important.

> > > It seems quite likely that we may end up in a "steady hot
> > > state" that may be irreversible. Please refer to Gaia theory.
> >
> > I'll check it out, but I'm doubtful if it predicts this
> > outcome.
//
> Another, Brian Goodwin, was at the Santa Fe Institute working
> on complexity.

Was he! Maybe I should ask my friend about swapping it for
Lewis.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do, you
> might say that problems like pollution and such are non-
> problems, because they create the technology to solve them
> in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .

Pollution creates technology? That's a new one.

(And no, I don't know what you really meant.)

> But the real answer is not to have cities.

How I agree with you there!

> The worst thing of all is cars.

Bingo!

> > But then, all this complexity theory - is it actually
> > having much impact on the worldviews of all the numerous
> > schools of science?
>
> A tremendous impact. But you don't see much of it in
> grade or undergraduate school unless you're in the sciences,
> because you're just getting the stuff from 200 years ago.

Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
(laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
worldview yet.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:

> > I mean,
> > the Earth is clearly warming but I'm not convinced it's
> > caused by pollution and I'm not convinced it's harmful to the
> > planet
>
> I wonder if the media in the US might be influenced by the US policy
> on pollution? We generally view it as horrific.

I can tell you that the *scientific* media in the US is completely
opposed to the current US policy on pollution, and tells the story that
only very few scientists still share Carl's doubts. When I
say "scientific media", I'm speaking of scientific magazines and
television programs. Perhaps some parts of the US don't have much
access to these, but they seem quite commonplace here in
Massachusetts ;)

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@a...>
wrote:

> Interestingly, the scientists who poo-poo global warming are
Republicans who
> have ties to the Bush Administration and the auto or fossil fuel
industry.

This is true, and their propaganda is that global warming is a lie
invented and funded by all those anti-business rich liberals like
George Soros (as if his wealth could hold a candle to that of the auto
and fossil fuel industries). Sadly, any Bush administration propaganda
is happily eaten up by about half our population, including members of
my immediate family.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> Global warming climatology has many
> hallmarks of an academic fad, with sloppy science that
> nobody can get an audience to challenge.

This sounds uncannily like the Republican propaganda Aaron was
referring to. It makes a nice sound bite for liberal-haters to digest
and regurgitate, but has no basis in reality. Any science whose
conclusions doesn't support the right-wing agenda is described
as "sloppy science" by non-scientists, and other non-scientists, not
knowing better, believe them. This has been going on with many, many
fields of science for well over 5 years now and shows no signs of
stopping. Soon, all real science will be eradicated in this country,
and many members of this list will be happy . . .

Then again, you may be right. Show me these "hallmarks" as well as
something substantive.

I think your information is simply a few years out of date. But I
won't prejudge. Lay it on me.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:

[Carl wrote:]

> > Oh, I think the pollution should be cut anyway, and Bush's
> > backing out of the various accords is a big mess. But for
> > all your science-bashing, global warming is a "science" with
> > very shaky standing indeed.
>
>
> Again, please refer to Gaia theory. I wonder who funds the
> scientists who say that this is not a problem.

These few scientists are a small minority of scientists, and as Aaron
stated, these few scientists are funded by ultra-rich oil companies and
the like, with a willing mouthpiece in the Bush administration.

A few years ago, many scientists would have agreed with Carl, for
honest reasons. Not today.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:

> > Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same fate
> > as native Americans did in the colonial period at the hands of
> > the Empire?
>
> I believe not. One big thing is the difference between an agricultural
> society conquering another Agricultural society (eg England vrs India)
> and an agricultural society conquering a unter gatherer society
> (England vrs Australia).

I don't see Native Americans mentioned in either example, though that's
what Carl brought up above. I was just reading in _Stolen Continents_
about vast fields of maize that belonged to a Native American tribe
before being destroyed by the Europeans. I'll have to look it up and
tell you which tribe, but that sure sounds pretty agricultural to
me . . .

On Thursday 06 October 2005 9:36 pm, Paul Erlich wrote:

> Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
> (laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
> lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
> worldview yet.

Exactly. Did you know that 55% of the American public think the God created
man as he is now, in accordance with Genesis, and completely reject
evolution?

depressing. America is a grat country in many ways--I like that people don't
smoke here as much as in Europe. But we are also mostly idiots.

-Aaron.

smoking actually reduces alheimers.

Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:

>On Thursday 06 October 2005 9:36 pm, Paul Erlich wrote:
>
> >
>>Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
>>(laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
>>lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
>>worldview yet.
>> >>
>
>Exactly. Did you know that 55% of the American public think the God created >man as he is now, in accordance with Genesis, and completely reject >evolution?
>
>depressing. America is a grat country in many ways--I like that people don't >smoke here as much as in Europe. But we are also mostly idiots.
>
>-Aaron.
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

On Thursday 06 October 2005 11:30 pm, Kraig Grady wrote:
> smoking actually reduces alheimers.

yes I've heard that. It also, I've heard, greatly *increases* your odds for
getting lung cancer.

-Aaron.

> Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:
> >On Thursday 06 October 2005 9:36 pm, Paul Erlich wrote:
> >>Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
> >>(laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
> >>lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
> >>worldview yet.
> >
> >Exactly. Did you know that 55% of the American public think the God
> > created man as he is now, in accordance with Genesis, and completely
> > reject evolution?
> >
> >depressing. America is a grat country in many ways--I like that people
> > don't smoke here as much as in Europe. But we are also mostly idiots.
> >
> >-Aaron.
> >
> >
> >
> >Meta Tuning meta-info:
> >
> >To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> >metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
> >
> >To post to the list, send to
> >metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >You don't have to be a member to post.
> >
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links

that is a given

Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:

>On Thursday 06 October 2005 11:30 pm, Kraig Grady wrote:
> >
>>smoking actually reduces alheimers.
>> >>
>
>yes I've heard that. It also, I've heard, greatly *increases* your odds for >getting lung cancer.
>
>-Aaron.
>
>
> >
>>Aaron Krister Johnson wrote:
>> >>
>>>On Thursday 06 October 2005 9:36 pm, Paul Erlich wrote:
>>> >>>
>>>>Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
>>>>(laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
>>>>lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
>>>>worldview yet.
>>>> >>>>
>>>Exactly. Did you know that 55% of the American public think the God
>>>created man as he is now, in accordance with Genesis, and completely
>>>reject evolution?
>>>
>>>depressing. America is a grat country in many ways--I like that people
>>>don't smoke here as much as in Europe. But we are also mostly idiots.
>>>
>>>-Aaron.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>>>
>>>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>>>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>>>
>>>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>>>
>>>To post to the list, send to
>>>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>>>
>>>You don't have to be a member to post.
>>>
>>>
>>>Yahoo! Groups Links
>>> >>>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

> > Global warming climatology has many
> > hallmarks of an academic fad, with sloppy science that
> > nobody can get an audience to challenge.
>
> This sounds uncannily like the Republican propaganda Aaron was
> referring to. It makes a nice sound bite for liberal-haters to
> digest and regurgitate, but has no basis in reality. Any science
> whose conclusions doesn't support the right-wing agenda is
> described as "sloppy science" by non-scientists, and other non-
> scientists, not knowing better, believe them. This has been
> going on with many, many fields of science for well over 5
> years now and shows no signs of stopping. Soon, all real science
> will be eradicated in this country, and many members of this
> list will be happy . . .

This assumption of cultural bias seems as bad as Kraig's.
You really don't think there are any climatologists that
doubt the proposed severity of the problem?

For the record I've seen exactly zero right-wing propaganda
on the subject. The only flat dismissal of it I've ever read
was on Owsley's site (and wasn't very persuasive). The last
thing I've seen in the news is that we backed out of the Kyoto
accords, and later I saw the Economist said we were smart to
do it (I dunno about that, though...).

> Then again, you may be right. Show me these "hallmarks" as
> well as something substantive.
>
> I think your information is simply a few years out of date.
> But I won't prejudge. Lay it on me.

It might be true. I last did a literature search in 2002.
I don't think I kept any of that. I only keep CS and music
stuff.

-Carl

> smoking actually reduces alheimers.

It reduces the number of people who get to experience
it, that's for sure!

-Carl

you think the republican are not biased against science when it threatens the people who pay to put them in office?

also the article i posted on this subject was outside of what the left was saying about global warming.
The sun has been really active, it is a bad assumption that it is a steady constant and will always be so.
Geological evidence has shown that the last two hundred years has been exceptionally mild.
Carl Lumma wrote:

>
>This assumption of cultural bias seems as bad as Kraig's.
>You really don't think there are any climatologists that
>doubt the proposed severity of the problem?
>
> >
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

> > If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do,
> > you might say that problems like pollution and such are
> > non-problems, because they create the technology to
> > solve them in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
>
> Pollution creates technology? That's a new one.
>
> (And no, I don't know what you really meant.)

You burn and use everything willy-nilly to innovate as
fast as you can, thereby creating less total pollution
than if you'd stayed in a lukewarm coal age for 200
years. And you don't catastrophically exhaust a resource
because you use it ever more efficiently until you
transition to a technology that doesn't even require it.
By 2030 or so, AI will have solved all of today's
problems (there will no doubt be new ones).

I'd always taken Kurzweil as an optimist about all of
this (Moravec certainly is), but he seemed very matter-
of-fact about it. 'It's basically unstoppable; I don't
know if it's good or bad' kind of thing. (I saw him
speak last week.) Another surprising thing was, as
opposed to Moravec's "Robots will inherit the Earth",
Kurzweil sees all these technologies as human, regardless
of their form or scope. ''They will arise in our culture.
People have cell phones; 5 years ago they didn't. But it
wasn't a devastating shock... it happened naturally.''

His biggest conern is protecting against catastrophe.
He said he's going before Congress to suggest a
"Manhattan-style" project to create a defense system
against biological warfare. He says every generation of
technology creates its own defenses in time, but getting
ready ahead of the curve is a good idea. When asked
about malevolent AI, he said, with a smile, the thing will
be to create AI to protect us from it.

> > But the real answer is not to have cities.
>
> How I agree with you there!

Really? I always took you for a city slicker! (And I
mean no offense by that!) Well, I'm glad to learn this
today.

> > > But then, all this complexity theory - is it actually
> > > having much impact on the worldviews of all the numerous
> > > schools of science?
> >
> > A tremendous impact. But you don't see much of it in
> > grade or undergraduate school unless you're in the sciences,
> > because you're just getting the stuff from 200 years ago.
>
> Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen
> (laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the
> lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our
> worldview yet.

Interesting.

-Carl

cities are the perfect place for ideas. internet is fine , but if we were in a cafe every night for a month, it would move faster,

Carl Lumma wrote:

>>>If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do,
>>>you might say that problems like pollution and such are
>>>non-problems, because they create the technology to
>>>solve them in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
>>> >>>
>>Pollution creates technology? That's a new one.
>>
>>(And no, I don't know what you really meant.)
>> >>
>
>You burn and use everything willy-nilly to innovate as
>fast as you can, thereby creating less total pollution
>than if you'd stayed in a lukewarm coal age for 200
>years. And you don't catastrophically exhaust a resource
>because you use it ever more efficiently until you
>transition to a technology that doesn't even require it.
>By 2030 or so, AI will have solved all of today's
>problems (there will no doubt be new ones).
>
>I'd always taken Kurzweil as an optimist about all of
>this (Moravec certainly is), but he seemed very matter-
>of-fact about it. 'It's basically unstoppable; I don't
>know if it's good or bad' kind of thing. (I saw him
>speak last week.) Another surprising thing was, as
>opposed to Moravec's "Robots will inherit the Earth",
>Kurzweil sees all these technologies as human, regardless
>of their form or scope. ''They will arise in our culture.
>People have cell phones; 5 years ago they didn't. But it
>wasn't a devastating shock... it happened naturally.''
>
>His biggest conern is protecting against catastrophe.
>He said he's going before Congress to suggest a
>"Manhattan-style" project to create a defense system
>against biological warfare. He says every generation of
>technology creates its own defenses in time, but getting
>ready ahead of the curve is a good idea. When asked
>about malevolent AI, he said, with a smile, the thing will
>be to create AI to protect us from it.
>
> >
>>>But the real answer is not to have cities.
>>> >>>
>>How I agree with you there!
>> >>
>
>Really? I always took you for a city slicker! (And I
>mean no offense by that!) Well, I'm glad to learn this
>today.
>
> >
>>>>But then, all this complexity theory - is it actually
>>>>having much impact on the worldviews of all the numerous
>>>>schools of science?
>>>> >>>>
>>>A tremendous impact. But you don't see much of it in
>>>grade or undergraduate school unless you're in the sciences,
>>>because you're just getting the stuff from 200 years ago. >>> >>>
>>Exactly. The way that even most scientists, let alone laymen >>(laywomen?), talk about stuff shows that, philosophically, the >>lessons of modern science haven't even begun to sink into our >>worldview yet.
>> >>
>
>Interesting.
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
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>
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>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
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>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

now now nicotine does have it pluses too!
if only we could get it without smoking and in non lethal dose it would be a good medicine

Carl Lumma wrote:

>>smoking actually reduces alheimers.
>> >>
>
>It reduces the number of people who get to experience
>it, that's for sure!
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
>
> > > Global warming climatology has many
> > > hallmarks of an academic fad, with sloppy science that
> > > nobody can get an audience to challenge.
> >
> > This sounds uncannily like the Republican propaganda Aaron was
> > referring to. It makes a nice sound bite for liberal-haters to
> > digest and regurgitate, but has no basis in reality. Any science
> > whose conclusions doesn't support the right-wing agenda is
> > described as "sloppy science" by non-scientists, and other non-
> > scientists, not knowing better, believe them. This has been
> > going on with many, many fields of science for well over 5
> > years now and shows no signs of stopping. Soon, all real science
> > will be eradicated in this country, and many members of this
> > list will be happy . . .
>
> This assumption of cultural bias seems as bad as Kraig's.

Cultural bias?

> You really don't think there are any climatologists that
> doubt the proposed severity of the problem?

Proposed by whom? The severity is definitely uncertain, but the great
majority of climatologists now recognize that human activities have
contributed to some extent to global warming, and will continue to do
so for some time. That's all, and yet that's enough to sound alarm
bells in the Republican/Big-Oil halls of power . . . they'd rather
have it said that their activities are innocuous and don't affect
climate at all. Or, "more research needs to be done" before they do
something so drastic as to, say, modernize aging power plants to be
less polluting. So the administration takes the scientific studies,
usually researched and written by *its own agencies*, and rewrites
every single sentence until the meaning is completely altered to a
politically favorable one. Government scientists are quitting in
record numbers . . .

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:
>
> you think the republican are not biased against science when it
> threatens the people who pay to put them in office?

Dude- I don't know!

-Carl

It always just makes me sick, but maybe you're right that I
just haven't been able to titrate the dose properly.

A word of caution on the studies that show coffee and/or
tobacco improve concentration, or the performance of some
test, between groups of volunteers (not that this is what
you were referring to)... the effects seen in at least on
prominant coffee study have bene shown to be entirely
explainable by the *adverse* effects of caffeine withdrawl
on the control group! (since caffeine addiction is nearly
universal in America).

-Carl

> now now nicotine does have it pluses too!
> if only we could get it without smoking and in non lethal dose
> it would be a good medicine
>
> >>smoking actually reduces alheimers.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >It reduces the number of people who get to experience
> >it, that's for sure!
> >
> >-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
>
> > > If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do,
> > > you might say that problems like pollution and such are
> > > non-problems, because they create the technology to
> > > solve them in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
> >
> > Pollution creates technology? That's a new one.
> >
> > (And no, I don't know what you really meant.)
>
> You burn and use everything willy-nilly to innovate as
> fast as you can, thereby creating less total pollution
> than if you'd stayed in a lukewarm coal age for 200
> years.

Highly idealistic, the idea that burning and using everything willy-
nilly means that you're innovating as fast as you can!

> > > But the real answer is not to have cities.
> >
> > How I agree with you there!
>
> Really? I always took you for a city slicker! (And I
> mean no offense by that!) Well, I'm glad to learn this
> today.

I don't miss living in NYC at all; the Boston area is like the
countryside in comparion, but I truly prefer the country; that's why
I bike to the forest and go to camp-out festivals whenever I can.
Once "coming into the office" is made obsolete, I'd love to buy a
house in a rural locale . . .

> > > This sounds uncannily like the Republican propaganda Aaron was
> > > referring to. It makes a nice sound bite for liberal-haters to
> > > digest and regurgitate, but has no basis in reality. Any science
> > > whose conclusions doesn't support the right-wing agenda is
> > > described as "sloppy science" by non-scientists, and other non-
> > > scientists, not knowing better, believe them. This has been
> > > going on with many, many fields of science for well over 5
> > > years now and shows no signs of stopping. Soon, all real science
> > > will be eradicated in this country, and many members of this
> > > list will be happy . . .
> >
> > This assumption of cultural bias seems as bad as Kraig's.
>
> Cultural bias?

If the left is a culture. The belief that any dissenting voice
must be / have bene paid off by conservatives is just naive.

> but the great majority of climatologists now recognize that
> human activities have contributed to some extent to global
> warming,

To what extent precisely? Are you aware of any decent-looking
models? I wasn't able to find any. Agreed this criterion might
be too strong, BUT...

> and will continue to do so for some time. That's all, and yet
> that's enough to sound alarm bells in the Republican/Big-Oil
> halls of power . . . they'd rather have it

Sounds like a fanciful anthropomorphization of ... some entity
or other.

> said that their activities are innocuous and don't affect
> climate at all.

Did they? That's equally hard to show. However, ice core
samples reveal a full spectrum of climate change in geologically
recent times. One paper I saw said there's no reason to believe,
based on ice-core temperature data, that what we're experiencing
is unnatural. Another suggested that stimulation of ocean
flora would counteract any effect. Several papers argued that
human contribution to greenhouse gasses is small compared to
that of typical variations in volcanic activity.....

> Or, "more research needs to be done" before they do something
> so drastic as to, say, modernize aging power plants to be less
> polluting.

If it's power generation that's got your goat, nuclear
technology has the answer today (though it's frankly fiddlin'
too deep for my taste... I'd MUCH rather just use less
electricity). Anyway, a friend of a friend and I had
a good discussion of the state of nuclear power over brunch
recently (she's a "nuclear physicist"). The fact that our
current system was funded (and then ceased to be funded) by
the weapons industry resulted in something non-optimal from
a power-generation point of view. Prefabricated microreactors
are only years away from delivery, potentially by air drop,
and run totally sealed for 20-40 years and then just go cold.
No control rods or chain reaction that can get away, just slow
heat; enough for a small town. I gotta admit it's tempting.

> So the administration takes the scientific studies, usually
> researched and written by *its own agencies*, and rewrites
> every single sentence until the meaning is completely altered
> to a politically favorable one. Government scientists are
> quitting in record numbers . . .

Really?

-Carl

> I don't miss living in NYC at all; the Boston area is like the
> countryside in comparion, but I truly prefer the country; that's why
> I bike to the forest and go to camp-out festivals whenever I can.
> Once "coming into the office" is made obsolete, I'd love to buy a
> house in a rural locale . . .

Dit-too!

-Carl

> > > > If you believe Ray Kurzweil, which I more or less do,
> > > > you might say that problems like pollution and such are
> > > > non-problems, because they create the technology to
> > > > solve them in ever-decreasing amounts of time. . .
> > >
> > > Pollution creates technology? That's a new one.
> > >
> > > (And no, I don't know what you really meant.)
> >
> > You burn and use everything willy-nilly to innovate as
> > fast as you can, thereby creating less total pollution
> > than if you'd stayed in a lukewarm coal age for 200
> > years.
>
> Highly idealistic, the idea that burning and using everything
> willy-nilly means that you're innovating as fast as you can!

Howabout this:

Fractional reserve banking stimulates growth by lowering the
cost of capital (the interest rate). If you don't practice
it, you can't have bank runs. But fractional reserve banking
so stimulates the economy that those who practice it have
literally wiped out those who don't.

?

-Carl

> The only flat dismissal of it I've ever read
> was on Owsley's site (and wasn't very persuasive).

http://www.thebear.org/essays2.html

I wonder if the Republicans are paying him!

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:
>
> > > Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same
> > > fate as native Americans did in the colonial period at
> > > the hands of the Empire?
> >
> > I believe not. One big thing is the difference between
> > an agricultural society conquering another Agricultural
> > society (eg England vrs India) and an agricultural society
> > conquering a unter gatherer society (England vrs Australia).
>
> I don't see Native Americans mentioned in either example,
> though that's what Carl brought up above. I was just reading
> in _Stolen Continents_ about vast fields of maize that
> belonged to a Native American tribe before being destroyed
> by the Europeans. I'll have to look it up and tell you
> which tribe, but that sure sounds pretty agricultural to
> me . . .
>

The fallacy in the response to Justin (who wrote that - Carl?)
is in assuming that all Native-American cultures were
hunter-gatherer.

"Native-American" simply refers to all those groups of
people who were already living on the American continents
when Columbus arrived, and while all those people did
share certain traits in common, the term covers a
vast array of different cultures, languages, religions, etc.

Yes, many Native-American peoples were hunter-gatherers,
but many of them were also agricultural. Many were
nomadic and followed the migrations of the animals they
killed for food, but others (i.e., Aztecs, Mayans) lived
in cities which awed the Europeans by their splendor.

I do realize that in this discussion, "Native-American"
is being used to refer to peoples who lived in what is
now the USA, and AFAIK those groups did not build cities;
the ones that did lived in what is now Mexico and Peru.
But my larger point is that we should avoid making big
generalizations in order to argue a position.

-monz

> The fallacy in the response to Justin (who wrote that - Carl?)
> is in assuming that all Native-American cultures were
> hunter-gatherer.

I think the text you're referring to was written by Justin.

> I do realize that in this discussion, "Native-American"
> is being used to refer to peoples who lived in what is
> now the USA, and AFAIK those groups did not build cities;

There was a Discover article a few years back about this
giant mound of dirt in the midwest that is believed to be
the work of prolific city-builders. Also, I'd guess the
Anastazi would qualify.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

>
> If it's power generation that's got your goat, nuclear
> technology has the answer today (though it's frankly fiddlin'
> too deep for my taste... I'd MUCH rather just use less
> electricity). Anyway, a friend of a friend and I had
> a good discussion of the state of nuclear power over brunch
> recently (she's a "nuclear physicist"). The fact that our
> current system was funded (and then ceased to be funded) by
> the weapons industry resulted in something non-optimal from
> a power-generation point of view. Prefabricated microreactors
> are only years away from delivery, potentially by air drop,
> and run totally sealed for 20-40 years and then just go cold.
> No control rods or chain reaction that can get away, just slow
> heat; enough for a small town. I gotta admit it's tempting.

And once they "go cold", then what? Radioactive waste that
sits around for thousands of years? If that's the case, then
however tempting, that's not the best solution for energy needs,
IMO.

One of the biggest problems with modern culture, and
specifically modern American culture, is the general
lack of concern over:

* how much garbage is produced,

* how toxic/lethal that garbage might be, and

* what to do with the garbage that is produced.

-monz

> > If it's power generation that's got your goat, nuclear
> > technology has the answer today (though it's frankly fiddlin'
> > too deep for my taste... I'd MUCH rather just use less
> > electricity). Anyway, a friend of a friend and I had
> > a good discussion of the state of nuclear power over brunch
> > recently (she's a "nuclear physicist"). The fact that our
> > current system was funded (and then ceased to be funded) by
> > the weapons industry resulted in something non-optimal from
> > a power-generation point of view. Prefabricated microreactors
> > are only years away from delivery, potentially by air drop,
> > and run totally sealed for 20-40 years and then just go cold.
> > No control rods or chain reaction that can get away, just slow
> > heat; enough for a small town. I gotta admit it's tempting.
>
> And once they "go cold", then what? Radioactive waste that
> sits around for thousands of years?

It sits around, but it's apparently not as nasty as the stuff
that comes out of current reactors. Meanwhile, you can argue
that since uranium is in the ground naturally... remember the
radon-in-your-basement thing in the 80s?

> If that's the case, then however tempting, that's not the
> best solution for energy needs, IMO.

That's ok. According to Kurzweil, while any given technology
may fail to deliver, there are always plenty that will
deliver to choose from instead. So an efficient means of
getting hydrogen out of water and storing it, for example.
Genetically-engineered photovoltaic organisms that grow on
your roof. Take your pick.

> One of the biggest problems with modern culture, and
> specifically modern American culture, is the general
> lack of concern over:
>
> * how much garbage is produced,

I used to worry about this hugely. But these days I'm more
like, it came out of the ground, how bad can it be to put
it back? There seem to be plenty of desolate areas that,
while I'm sure they're delicate ecosystems and all that, I
wouldn't mind a bit if you turned them into landfills and
roped them off for a few hundred years as far as not living
nearby. Call me evil.

Mind you, with more fresh foods / local produce, food
packaging waste would be reduced. And that's the bulk of
what my household generates.

-Carl

uranium?
you have to mine it , refine, ship it burn it, store the waste as deeply as you can and watch over it.
sound like allot of energy i used up just getting it to the point of making a few sparks

Carl Lumma wrote:

>>>If it's power generation that's got your goat, nuclear
>>>technology has the answer today (though it's frankly fiddlin'
>>>too deep for my taste... I'd MUCH rather just use less
>>>electricity). Anyway, a friend of a friend and I had
>>>a good discussion of the state of nuclear power over brunch
>>>recently (she's a "nuclear physicist"). The fact that our
>>>current system was funded (and then ceased to be funded) by
>>>the weapons industry resulted in something non-optimal from
>>>a power-generation point of view. Prefabricated microreactors
>>>are only years away from delivery, potentially by air drop,
>>>and run totally sealed for 20-40 years and then just go cold.
>>>No control rods or chain reaction that can get away, just slow
>>>heat; enough for a small town. I gotta admit it's tempting.
>>> >>>
>>And once they "go cold", then what? Radioactive waste that
>>sits around for thousands of years?
>> >>
>
>It sits around, but it's apparently not as nasty as the stuff
>that comes out of current reactors. Meanwhile, you can argue
>that since uranium is in the ground naturally... remember the
>radon-in-your-basement thing in the 80s?
>
> >
>>If that's the case, then however tempting, that's not the
>>best solution for energy needs, IMO.
>> >>
>
>That's ok. According to Kurzweil, while any given technology
>may fail to deliver, there are always plenty that will
>deliver to choose from instead. So an efficient means of
>getting hydrogen out of water and storing it, for example.
>Genetically-engineered photovoltaic organisms that grow on
>your roof. Take your pick.
>
> >
>>One of the biggest problems with modern culture, and
>>specifically modern American culture, is the general >>lack of concern over:
>>
>>* how much garbage is produced,
>> >>
>
>I used to worry about this hugely. But these days I'm more
>like, it came out of the ground, how bad can it be to put
>it back? There seem to be plenty of desolate areas that,
>while I'm sure they're delicate ecosystems and all that, I
>wouldn't mind a bit if you turned them into landfills and
>roped them off for a few hundred years as far as not living
>nearby. Call me evil.
>
>Mind you, with more fresh foods / local produce, food
>packaging waste would be reduced. And that's the bulk of
>what my household generates.
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

> uranium?
> you have to mine it , refine, ship it burn it, store the
> waste as deeply as you can and watch over it.
> sound like allot of energy i used up just getting it to the
> point of making a few sparks

There are places where it's not safe to live because of
uranium.

The waste is tiny compared to fossil fuels, and let's not
forget you have to mine those too. And I'd much rather
have the waste on the ground than in the air. As far as
energy density, uranium is unbeatable.

Rooftop solar with voluntarily energy-use reduction would
go a *long* way in California. But solar really isn't
viable in most of the US with present technology. And
even if CA switched to solar today we wouldn't see the
benefit for 8 years, since that is how long panels take
to generate the energy needed to make them.

If you want to get off fossil fuels for electricity in
the next 10 years in the US without causing catastrophic
economic damage it can be done, but it would have to be
nukes.

In the next 5-10 years, LED home lighting will make one of
the largest contributors to household electricity consumption
practically disappear. So that's good.

-Carl

Some tribes were agricultural, some not. Those that were were in the
early stags of agriculture. Generally agiculturalists had a better fare.
Justin.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:
>
> > > Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same fate
> > > as native Americans did in the colonial period at the hands of
> > > the Empire?
> >
> > I believe not. One big thing is the difference between an agricultural
> > society conquering another Agricultural society (eg England vrs India)
> > and an agricultural society conquering a unter gatherer society
> > (England vrs Australia).
>
> I don't see Native Americans mentioned in either example, though that's
> what Carl brought up above. I was just reading in _Stolen Continents_
> about vast fields of maize that belonged to a Native American tribe
> before being destroyed by the Europeans. I'll have to look it up and
> tell you which tribe, but that sure sounds pretty agricultural to
> me . . .
>

which tribes were not agricultural
those that followed the bison?

justinasia wrote:

>Some tribes were agricultural, some not. Those that were were in the
>early stags of agriculture. Generally agiculturalists had a better fare.
>Justin.
>
>--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
> >
>>--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "justinasia" <justinasia@y...> wrote:
>>
>> >>
>>>>Yes but didn't these ethnoi essentially suffer the same fate
>>>>as native Americans did in the colonial period at the hands of
>>>>the Empire?
>>>> >>>>
>>>I believe not. One big thing is the difference between an agricultural
>>>society conquering another Agricultural society (eg England vrs India)
>>>and an agricultural society conquering a unter gatherer society
>>>(England vrs Australia).
>>> >>>
>>I don't see Native Americans mentioned in either example, though that's >>what Carl brought up above. I was just reading in _Stolen Continents_ >>about vast fields of maize that belonged to a Native American tribe >>before being destroyed by the Europeans. I'll have to look it up and >>tell you which tribe, but that sure sounds pretty agricultural to >>me . . .
>>
>> >>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
>To unsubscribe, send an email to:
>metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
>To post to the list, send to
>metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
>You don't have to be a member to post.
>
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
> >

--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Hi Paul,

> Sadly, any Bush administration propaganda is happily eaten up by
> about half our population, including members of my immediate
> family.

Missed this first time around. Mine too. I hate it when
politics comes between family, but it seems to have done
this somewhat in mine since Bush took office.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> > Sadly, any Bush administration propaganda is happily eaten up by
> > about half our population, including members of my immediate
> > family.
>
> Missed this first time around. Mine too. I hate it when
> politics comes between family, but it seems to have done
> this somewhat in mine since Bush took office.

In general, it is true that the Bush regime (Air America Radio
personality Mike Malloy likes to call it "the Bush Crime Family")
has polarized people in America (and elsewhere too) more
divisively than anything else i've seen in my lifetime.

This, coming from the guy who billed himself as "The Great Uniter".

http://web.bentley.edu/students/b/barnaco_sean/INDEX4.html

-monz

> The severity is definitely uncertain, but the great majority
> of climatologists now recognize that human activities have
> contributed to some extent to global warming,

I am now convinced not only that the majority believe this, but
that they're right. What the future holds for climate change,
the anthropogenic contribution to it, and the significance of it
compared to natural events in Earth's past, remain up for grabs.

http://climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_stott_180402.pdf

This paper is hosted by climateprediction.net, a distributed-
computing experiment in global climate modeling, results from
which have been appearing in Nature this year. Great stuff, and
anyone concerned about climate change could contribute.

My previous literature search was only a few years ago but
progress seems to have been rapid.

-Carl

It seems that allot of this global warming was done by atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons which at a certain point was causing change and they rushed to agree to stop it , all with smiles on there faces as if nothing was wrong.
Or course we will never know

Carl Lumma wrote:

>>The severity is definitely uncertain, but the great majority
>>of climatologists now recognize that human activities have
>>contributed to some extent to global warming,
>> >>
>
>I am now convinced not only that the majority believe this, but
>that they're right. What the future holds for climate change,
>the anthropogenic contribution to it, and the significance of it
>compared to natural events in Earth's past, remain up for grabs.
>
>http://climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_stott_180402.pdf
>
>This paper is hosted by climateprediction.net, a distributed-
>computing experiment in global climate modeling, results from
>which have been appearing in Nature this year. Great stuff, and
>anyone concerned about climate change could contribute.
>
>My previous literature search was only a few years ago but
>progress seems to have been rapid.
>
>-Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

> http://climateprediction.net/science/pubs/nature_stott_180402.pdf
>
> This paper is hosted by climateprediction.net, a distributed-
> computing experiment in global climate modeling, results from
> which have been appearing in Nature this year. Great stuff, and
> anyone concerned about climate change could contribute.

From the paper:

""In the first four decades of this century, Fig. 1 shows that
predictions for a representative ranges of SRES scenarios differ
remarkably little. Until 2040, uncertainty is dominated not by
uncertainties in emissions scenarios but by uncertainties in
climate response. Later in the century, the effect of different
emissions matter much more, although even at the end of the century
climate response uncertainty remains as great as emissions
uncertainty. Relatively modest increases in global temperature
by 2100 are possible under some emissions scenarios, but extremely
rapid warming rates over the century cannot be excluded under
fossil fuel intensive scenarios.""

-C.