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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 13:49:35 GMT -5
It also brings us one step closer to seeing the truth about Seth's self-aware electrons. You mean like facebook and ST are self-aware? Some critters work collectively to support the group, like bees and ants. I don't believe there's some kind of biological communication going on, so it must be happening on another level. It makes me wonder if they are somehow self aware as a collective, and this somehow translates into individual self awareness. I've talked about the starling clouds before. I don't know how it's done, but it's not choreographed by bird brains. Wonderbeauty: That is really beautiful and picking that apart by the mind would seem to miss the point. But I wouldn't underestimate the reach of the mathematicians and modeler's in this instance. There's likely a few simple rules that could explain the cloud with the right equations to fill in the details. Something like, "most birds don't want to be on the edge of the cloud and tend to follow those around them".
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Post by andrew on Mar 6, 2018 13:50:43 GMT -5
Yeah, values are just 'what you value' lol...nothing complicated about it. You value what you call 'truth' and this is reflected in your choices. This is the definition I assumed you were using, which is not the same as 'stuff you value' and is more complicated lol: "1. Important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person's behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Some common business values are fairness, innovation and community involvement. Read more: www.businessdictionary.com/definition/values.htmlwell that's basically a long winded way of saying what I am saying, though that's a business dictionary so they have related it to business.
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Post by andrew on Mar 6, 2018 13:59:30 GMT -5
Well, having no reason to live isn't that the definition of hopelessness? And the comparison with old folks is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. The article also didn't mention anything about dying peacefully. Fine, then I'll make another comparison. For many, prison is a fate worse than death, and when you want to punish a prisoner you put him in solitary confinement. Maybe he misses the love and nurturing of his mommy? Life must be engaged. It's a matter of life and death. You weren't talking to me, but I can't work out what you are saying here. I assume your argument is that an unloved baby doesn't suffer, but how does the prison relate? I would say that the absence of unconditional love is the first existential crisis that a human experiences and it lays the pathway for identification with the I-concept (or the 'persona') as the child develops.
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Post by andrew on Mar 6, 2018 14:01:09 GMT -5
I stayed at a friend's house in America once, I was quite young, but he and his wife had just had a baby. He went off to work early, around 5. The baby started crying at around 6.30. I expected Mom to get up but I think she was struggling to handle motherhood, and so left the baby. By 7 the baby was wailing. By 7.30 the baby was screaming. I was suffering, and was in dilemma over choice of going to Mom's bedroom to get her up, or go and get the baby myself and try and calm her...but I didn't feel I had much experience of babies, and I didn't want to insult the family. The baby was suffering. In the end I prayed and called on angels. Amazingly enough the baby calmed in about 5 minutes and THEN Mom got up. You just can't really compare old folks being at peace with impending death, and a baby not being given love and affection and dying as a result.
I'm not making that comparison. I'm not talking about making peace with death. I'm talking about dying because there is no reason to live. I'm also not talking about not being given love and affection. I'm talking about the baby not engaging with life. If we say that the baby dies because it has no reason to live, that's the existential crisis. Just because it's not overly conscious of it, doesn't mean that it isn't horribly unpleasant.
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Post by andrew on Mar 6, 2018 14:02:07 GMT -5
Actually, in some nursing homes for old folks, conditions are even worse, they not only not get any affection, they are not even kept healthy. So the comparison is a dud no matter how you look at it. Love and affection is great, but that's not what keeps babies alive. It's about engagement with life. Okay, it seems I am definitely confused about your point.
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Post by andrew on Mar 6, 2018 14:04:57 GMT -5
It's the best you've got if you have to rely on external instruments (and external evidence). Which means the limits of understanding (or proof) are identical to the limits the consensus trance sets. Seth talks a lot about this dilemma of modern science. Right, dream evidence. That's why I point out the limitations of video evidence. However, for the most part I'm equally unimpressed with peeps intuitive evidence. This isn't about prove-ability though. I'm not trying to PROVE to you that a baby suffers....I couldn't prove it. I can't prove that adult humans suffer either. But you do accept that adult humans suffer, right? That's the context we're talking in...the assumption is that suffering happens.
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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 14:18:38 GMT -5
Actually, in some nursing homes for old folks, conditions are even worse, they not only not get any affection, they are not even kept healthy. So the comparison is a dud no matter how you look at it. Love and affection is great, but that's not what keeps babies alive. It's about engagement with life. "Engagement with life" is a solid pointing, but "reason to live" is abstract and implicates personal purpose. People peeps might think of it as "will to live", and they're mistaken about the source of that "will".
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 6, 2018 18:03:23 GMT -5
Yes, thanks. Reef's link is much worse, it discusses a similar experiment with human babies. Yup, sick. I just hope that the fact that they called it off half way thru means the babies at least taught them a lesson. The article mentioned that it is difficult to verify where and when the experiment happened, only that it repeatedly shows up in older psychology text books. Could this mean that they've later scrubbed any evidence because it was so unethical? I don't know. It seems pretty bizarre, as bad as Hitler's scientists experimenting on people. This also reminds me of John C Lilly's work with Dolphins (I think it was in the '50's). After working with several dolphins, in captivity, for several years I think it was, they all suddenly committed suicide. He was very upset and decided never to work with dolphins again unless they were free, that is, had access to the ocean and were free to come and go at their own choosing. He never worked with dolphins again. (After this he invented the flotation tank, to duplicate the environment of dolphins, for humans).
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 6, 2018 18:16:18 GMT -5
Yes, thanks. Reef's link is much worse, it discusses a similar experiment with human babies. What's weird is I genuinely don't see it like that at all. In fact I actually seem to feel more sympathy for the monkey for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on. It may just be the added image on the front of the video to be working with, rather than just text, or maybe that I'm attributing less ability for the monkey to be able to make sense out of its predicament, or to relate to the different species not interacting with it (I didn't even see whether there were other monkey's around it). Anyway I'm honestly not sure. What I am 100 percent sure about is that I see their potential to suffer as being fairly equal (although if anything the monkeys mental development cycle is quicker, albeit not so advanced in the long run - making it's potential to suffer at that stage in it's development even greater than the babies) and that I attribute no more value to the baby humans life than the baby monkey's. I firmly believe that isn't a pretence but the result of insight and compassion. And I'll go even further and say that I see the view you've expressed there as being based on the remnants of the sort of mind-set that led to the experiments being performed in the first place. Sorry if that sounds harsh, or positioning, I mean it quite objectively. There is a line from Clint Eastwood's character in the great western Unforgiven (William Money? that name comes up...)..but he is talking to the young dude who thinks himself a "gunfighter" (he later gives up the moral fight...sees how horrible killing is), but Clint Eastwood tells him: "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man, you take away everything he's got, and everything he's ever going to have". So part of the sadness is those children not growing up....but of course, they might be better off dead...than carrying THAT...
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 6, 2018 18:24:44 GMT -5
Yup, sick. I just hope that the fact that they called it off half way thru means the babies at least taught them a lesson. The article mentioned that it is difficult to verify where and when the experiment happened, only that it repeatedly shows up in older psychology text books. Could this mean that they've later scrubbed any evidence because it was so unethical? In all fairness, unlike the monkey experiment, what happened to the babies could be nothing more than an urban legend. I followed the link and didn't see a cite to anything corroborating the story as told by the writer. Yes....sounds too bizarre. Any psychologist is going to know about feral children...that it doesn't end well... listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 20:20:14 GMT -5
When you say you can't not know something, you have made it unquestionable. The only thing you can't not know is that you exist, which is something you question on a regular basis. No, you can know something unequivocally and it still doesn't mean it is true, or unquestionable, or absolute. There's a lot of stuff that you know unequivocally....that a screaming baby is suffering, that you love Marie, that Marie is perceiving. All these things CAN be questioned, but that won't change the knowing of them.In the case of 'you know you exist', the solipsism discussion has revealed the problem of not investigating this statement. After all, you would say that you know you exist, but you don't know that I exist, right? Whereas I would say that I know I exist AND I know you exist. OR I would say the knowing that I exist and the knowing that you exist is equally illusion. I don't see my knowing that I exist as more or less unquestionable than my knowing that you exist. Right. Instead of asking "How could you know?" you might as well ask "How could you not know?!" And what about all the squirrel satsang stories? Let's replace 'baby' with Marie and 'suffering' with 'love' or 'mutual understanding' and see how that conversation goes. I'm pretty confident when it comes to arguing the opposite end of the stick that he has argued the exact opposite position. So I'm not really sure what he is doing here.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 21:04:25 GMT -5
In all fairness, unlike the monkey experiment, what happened to the babies could be nothing more than an urban legend. I followed the link and didn't see a cite to anything corroborating the story as told by the writer. Yes....sounds too bizarre. Any psychologist is going to know about feral children...that it doesn't end well... listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/The psychology of bonding is an interesting field of research. That's where I first heard about that experiment. It could be an urban legend, as Laughter suggested. I spent a significant amount of time trying to track down an original source but couldn't find it so far. But given the mindset of scientists at the time in regard to babies and their ability (or assumed lack of ability) to even sense physical pain (let alone psychological pain) I wouldn't be surprised though if it actually happened. There have been far worse experiments though in the name of scientific progress. Also, I think we don't have to exclusively focus on the extreme negative end of that stick. We could as well ask if babies are capable of feeling the extreme positive end of the stick, i.e. eagerness, love, joy or passion. My point has been that the individual (dualistic) feelings that are experienced are subject to individual focus. The baby has the ability to focus. So from my perspective, the whole range of (dualistic) feelings can potentially be experienced by the baby. Would be interesting to see how everyone argues the other end of the (dualistic) feeling stick regarding babies (or animals).
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 22:18:01 GMT -5
Well, what would the brown bear say here? "There is no baby monkey, there is no cage, and there is no wire mother with a bottle. There is only the always present unlimited and constantly moving vastness of space time appearing in ever changing impermanent waves of ephemeral form. There is no sad face, suffering is only an illusion created by your mind. " Does this mean Mr. Brown Bear acknowledges there are other minds and other perceivers?
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Post by tenka on Mar 7, 2018 3:01:36 GMT -5
Of course it has a sense of itself just as it has a sense of another bunny . You keep missing out the sense of identity because there needs a sense of identity in order to differentiate the other bunny from the fox . I don't really know what a sense of identity is. Is it body identification or something else? Regardless, all that is needed in order to differentiate is the ability to differentiate. The ability to differentiate requires a sense of self that can differentiate . The moment you identify / notice / acknowledge something you have identified that something in reflection of yourself . You don't appear to understand how that works . Even floaters go around saying they are awareness and don't have an identity of sorts as spoken about on the other forums. Peeps don't seem to understand that in order to self relate what they are with or too requires that sense of self identity . If a peep or a bunny had no sense of self identity they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between themselves and something else that is perceived . They wouldn't be able to relate to what is perceived as something else other than themselves . How can they?
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Post by tenka on Mar 7, 2018 3:08:58 GMT -5
From the perspective that there is only what you are .. all life forms experience . I was pointing towards the reason for experiencing .. If there was no sense of the experience had in reflection of what you are, then there would be no point manifesting as this or that . I think some peeps see a sense of self or what you are as something different from a self identity . There are different levels at play for sure regarding identifying self butt when a bunny defends it's space it does so because the sense of itself is identified otherwise it wouldn't behave as it does . An amoeba that feeds, move, reproduces I would say has it's own self identifying experience . yeah I do agree, though I believe that there is a useful distinction to be made between animals that can consider who they are and where they come from, and animals (or plants or ameobas or electrons) that can't, because this kind of self-reflection can come with a particular kind of suffering. Making that distinction gives us something to work with in a way. Yep it's useful to take into consideration different levels at play regarding different species and their ability to make sense of things or feel things . I think however that every conscious living 'thing' is suffering even if they don't have the capacity to acknowledge it . I say that because of my understanding of what suffering is compared to not . Being oblivious to suffering doesn't at the heart of it nullify the suffering .
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