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2 minutes ago, Rocky said:

The "greatest secret in the world today" is how did Mike learn to so efficaciously push the buttons of GSC netizens to keep wasting time on vain babblings (useless/fruitless interaction) on a topic that even trained philosophers and/or scientists will likely never resolve... let alone a handful of disgruntled PFLAP grads. 

true dat!   :redface2:

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1 minute ago, Rocky said:

The "greatest secret in the world today" is how did Mike learn to so efficaciously push the buttons of GSC netizens to keep wasting time on vain babblings (useless/fruitless interaction) on a topic that even trained philosophers and/or scientists will likely never resolve... let alone a handful of disgruntled PFLAP grads. 

I keep trying to nudge everyone back on track to the original stated topic - T7TMOG.

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28 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

I keep trying to nudge everyone back on track to the original stated topic - T7TMOG.

I'm not trying to be nitpicky - but the thread title differs from your thread starter post - or rather after Mike deflected on the 7th The Man of God thing - we never did return to that

On 11/2/2022 at 5:15 PM, Nathan_Jr said:

Mike wanted me to start this topic so he can do what he does.

What I want is to find out is who the other six "the men of god" are. Johniam said a music coordinator told him victor was "The 7th THE Man of God." Who is this music coordinator and who are the other six "THE Men of God"?

I'm happy to discuss determinism and the illusion of free will, as long a we get to the bottom of this T7TMOG thing. This goes to the heart of cult manipulation and cult leadership and what it means to be a cult.

 

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9 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

I'm not trying to be nitpicky - but the thread title differs from your thread starter post - or rather after Mike deflected on the 7th The Man of God thing - we never did return to that

 

Right. Not nitpicky at all. The topic is a bait and switch. And it’s ironic. And it’s bullshonta. These are all figgers of speech. 
 

mogadishu

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6 hours ago, Rocky said:

Why? What's the point of that?

Btw, my computer crashed the other day. Got a new one today. 

Good point...we're never gonna stay on topic anyway..lol

Welcome back! Sorry to hear your computer croaked...that's a little more than mildly unpleasant.

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16 hours ago, Rocky said:

Why? What's the point of that?

Btw, my computer crashed the other day. Got a new one today. 

good for you!

what did you get and what's the operating system?

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1 hour ago, Rocky said:

A laptop, brand doesn't matter. But I did buy the extended warranty this time. Windows 11. Will take a little getting used to.

  well cool - as long as you're happy with the purchase that's really all that matters    :beer:

My laptop came with Windows 11 - bought it last year - have no complaints...I have it setup for auto updates and seems like it does that every couple of months. 

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In case Mike still looks in on this thread, I just listened to a very enlightening 30 minute YouTube video of Yuval Noah Harari, a guy MUCH smarter, I'm confident, than any of us who have posted on this subject.

Professor Harari, author of the very intriguing books, including Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, convinced me, though I didn't ask him to do so, that the question of free will vs determinism is probably the WRONG question to be asking.

The issue Harari lectured on was The Politics of Consciousness. He doesn't suggest the answer. Rather, he defines some parameters for exploring the topic.

Anyway, if anyone reading this may be interested, the video is easily found on YouTube by searching on his name and the topic (highlighted above).

To me, the question of defining consciousness seems much more relevant than this thread ever did, at least to me.

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8 hours ago, Rocky said:

In case Mike still looks in on this thread, I just listened to a very enlightening 30 minute YouTube video of Yuval Noah Harari, a guy MUCH smarter, I'm confident, than any of us who have posted on this subject.

I am aware of Harari Yuval, but as I mentioned, many are into the free will debate for POLITICAL reasons.  This strongly resembles how Soviet genetic science took a downturn in the 1950s due to Stalin's interest in having it tow the party line. These thinkers are unhappy with the way human judicial systems have evolved, and the issue of fairness is more the issue with them.  They want the debate to be about Fair Will and it ruins the science, IMO, so I stay away from them. It is pretty awesome how radical some of the young followers of people like Harari Yuval can get, politically.   My hunch is that Youvai is not oriented in the hard sciences, but I could be wrong.

*/*/*/*/*

I totally agree with you, Rocky, that consciousness is the bigger topic.  The Roger Penrose books I mentioned from the 1990s were focused more on consciousness, and free will was a side issue.

I mentioned in my chapter 5 that I feel consciousness, LIKE FREE WILL, has been idolized by Western thinkers for 1,000 years to being something more glorious and grand than Biology has endowed it with.

This idolizing of man's mind goes against the Biblical perspective that man has no preeminence above the beasts, as well as against the "USCD school of thought" on this topic, which is the hardest of the hard core sciences that are studying free will and consciousness.  Their perspective, like mine, is that man's mind is a NATURAL thing with no traces of the supernatural.

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I beg to differ. I think the correct biblical perspective is as follows:

Genesis 1:26 humankind is made in the image and likeness of God and was given dominion over animals

Ecclesiastes 3:19 is probably best understood in the caveat of the theme of the entire book: IF this is all there is - there is nothing beyond this life - then  man has  no preeminence over animals 

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1 hour ago, T-Bone said:

I beg to differ. I think the correct biblical perspective is as follows:

Genesis 1:26 humankind is made in the image and likeness of God and was given dominion over animals

Ecclesiastes 3:19 is probably best understood in the caveat of the theme of the entire book: IF this is all there is - there is nothing beyond this life - then  man has  no preeminence over animals 

I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. Then the fall and loss of that image.

Ecclesiastes laments that THIS is all there is NOW (man not above beasts), with great hope for the future changes.

The Book of Romans documents how bad the current state is for natural man, prior to the new birth.  There, in chapter 3,  Paul documents from the old testament:

 As it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one
there is no one who understands;

there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”

 “Their throats are open graves;
 their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
  ruin and misery mark their ways,
  and the way of peace they do not know.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

 

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2 hours ago, T-Bone said:

I beg to differ. I think the correct biblical perspective is as follows:

Genesis 1:26 humankind is made in the image and likeness of God and was given dominion over animals

Ecclesiastes 3:19 is probably best understood in the caveat of the theme of the entire book: IF this is all there is - there is nothing beyond this life - then  man has  no preeminence over animals 

 

Late additions to my post above:


I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. In the image of God was the INTENDED quality of mankind. Then the fall and loss of that image.

I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. Then the fall and loss of that image, and the loss of dominion over the animals.

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11 hours ago, Rocky said:

In case Mike still looks in on this thread, I just listened to a very enlightening 30 minute YouTube video of Yuval Noah Harari, a guy MUCH smarter, I'm confident, than any of us who have posted on this subject.

Professor Harari, author of the very intriguing books, including Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, convinced me, though I didn't ask him to do so, that the question of free will vs determinism is probably the WRONG question to be asking.

The issue Harari lectured on was The Politics of Consciousness. He doesn't suggest the answer. Rather, he defines some parameters for exploring the topic.

Anyway, if anyone reading this may be interested, the video is easily found on YouTube by searching on his name and the topic (highlighted above).

To me, the question of defining consciousness seems much more relevant than this thread ever did, at least to me.

Harari says in his Sapiens book (page 240) …determinism is appealing because it implies that our world and our beliefs are a natural and inevitable product of history…History cannot be explained deterministically, and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes.

 I like Harari’s ideas here because he acknowledges the intricate connections of the world purely from the physical realm. From a Christian perspective I also believe God can “invade” …”interfere”…”orchestrate”…in His sovereignty, transcendence, and immanence – exactly how He does that I don’t pretend to fully understand – for me it’s just one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

I'll have to check out his video sometime.

Yup - defining…explaining consciousness is the $64,000 question. In his book The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness   Damasio (who is the Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California and, additionally, an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute ) gets into among other things the relationship of emotions and the faculties of the brain – and talks about a patient with brain damage who’s injury seemed to cause a disconnect of emotions from decision-making skills – from that and other cases he studied he surmised in a normal functioning brain emotions played a critical role in decision-making…which goes against wierwille’s ideology and the typical TWI-mindset that we ignore our emotions.

 

In my opinion, defining consciousness is a theoretical and philosophical pursuit. Dennett gets into various ways of explaining the phenomena of human consciousness in Consciousness Explained: Dennett, Daniel C., Weiner, Paul (amazon.com)  through thought experiments and imagining conscious robots...lots of fun stuff to think about!

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. Then the fall and loss of that image.

Your argument is untenable because of passages written after the Fall – for instance:

New International Version
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.   Genesis 9:6

 

New International Version
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.    James 3:9

 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Ecclesiastes laments that THIS is all there is NOW (man not above beasts), with great hope for the future changes.

To reiterate what I said earlier - you fail to acknowledge the Preacher is bemoaning a worldview devoid of God – the author is NOT mentioning your ideas of hope/future change…everything about the here and now discussed in the book is pointless if this is all there is. That’s why the book ends with remember NOW thy creator

 

 

1 hour ago, Mike said:

The Book of Romans documents how bad the current state is for natural man, prior to the new birth.  There, in chapter 3,  Paul documents from the old testament:

 As it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one
there is no one who understands;

there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”

 “Their throats are open graves;
 their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
  ruin and misery mark their ways,
  and the way of peace they do not know.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Yes - no argument here - humankind is unable to fully grasp the truth of God and His standard of righteousness – I’m not sure why you brought this up…it’s not because humankind lacked the opportunity – like God was negligent to reveal something – but rather Paul is using OT passages to show the problem has to do with humankind’s rebellion and depravity…I don’t understand what this has to do with our discussion

 

32 minutes ago, Mike said:

I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. In the image of God was the INTENDED quality of mankind. Then the fall and loss of that image.

I see the ORIGINAL state of man as being in that image of God. Then the fall and loss of that image, and the loss of dominion over the animals.

Where did you get the idea man lost dominion over the animals?

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7 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

Yup - defining…explaining consciousness is the $64,000 question. In his book The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness   Damasio (who is the Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California and, additionally, an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute ) gets into among other things the relationship of emotions and the faculties of the brain – and talks about a patient with brain damage who’s injury seemed to cause a disconnect of emotions from decision-making skills – from that and other cases he studied he surmised in a normal functioning brain emotions played a critical role in decision-making…which goes against wierwille’s ideology and the typical TWI-mindset that we ignore our emotions.

 

In my opinion, defining consciousness is a theoretical and philosophical pursuit. Dennett gets into various ways of explaining the phenomena of human consciousness in Consciousness Explained: Dennett, Daniel C., Weiner, Paul (amazon.com)  through thought experiments and imagining conscious robots...lots of fun stuff to think about!

I disagree that VPW downplayed emotions in THAT way.  That is a whole other topic, though. Maybe some other time we could discuss it.

I just want to note that UNLIKE Harari Yuval, the two scholars you just mentioned are closely aligned with the UCSD hard core determinism school of thought I have talked about, and that I align myself with.

Dennett was a visitor to the group I attended around 1995, where I had a chance to meet and talk with him.  I later discussed some of my work with him by e-mails.

Domasio and his wife (another superstar) visited us twice, but I didn't get a chance to talk with them close-up.  The Domasio team has written several of the best books in the field of brain science, IMO.

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47 minutes ago, Mike said:

I disagree that VPW downplayed emotions in THAT way.  That is a whole other topic, though. Maybe some other time we could discuss it.      

whatever

47 minutes ago, Mike said:

I just want to note that UNLIKE Harari Yuval, the two scholars you just mentioned are closely aligned with the UCSD hard core determinism school of thought I have talked about, and that I align myself with.

when Jupiter aligns with Mars

you  seem contradictory - you align yourself with hard core determinism and yet you extol the greatness of wierwille's ideology /PFAL which goes counter to that

sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between a troll and someone who just genuinely wants to argue about a topic...when someone is so disputatious on just about every topic - and exhibits contradictory opinions I doubt if they genuinely want to discuss a topic - looks more like they just want to make trouble.

47 minutes ago, Mike said:

Dennett was a visitor to the group I attended around 1995, where I had a chance to meet and talk with him.  I later discussed some of my work with him by e-mails.

that's nice

47 minutes ago, Mike said:

Domasio and his wife (another superstar) visited us twice, but I didn't get a chance to talk with them close-up.  The Domasio team has written several of the best books in the field of brain science, IMO.

wonderful...just wonderful

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

The Book of Romans documents how bad the current state is for natural man, prior to the new birth.  There, in chapter 3,  Paul documents from the old testament:

Actually, that section of Romans is addressing Israel, those who know the Mosaic Law and is concluding them under dominion of sin along with the nations, or gentiles. Israel held to the righteousnes of the law, which they couldn't live up to. So both Gentile and Israel are shown that the just shall live by faith. While Romans definately shows man under the dominion of sin (both sins he commits and the root cause of sins, the sin nature buried within man in his corrupted state) the problem doesn't just vanish when one is born again. The contrast between Romans 7 and 8 for example shows the warring natures in the child of God. Two natures in the child of God, the old man Adamic one, and the last Adam - Jesus Christ and the new creation he creates in us at the new birth. What's my point? Determinism doesn't fit with scripture. Romans details the choice between walking in the spirit and the old nature. Free will choice.

Also, you keep on with this natural man stuff, like it all just vanishes at the new birth. Thats the essence of the warring natures within the child of God - when given a choice what will a person choose? New birth, new nature, or old man, old nature.

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

I disagree that VPW downplayed emotions in THAT way.  That is a whole other topic, though. Maybe some other time we could discuss it.

I just want to note that UNLIKE Harari Yuval, the two scholars you just mentioned are closely aligned with the UCSD hard core determinism school of thought I have talked about, and that I align myself with.

Dennett was a visitor to the group I attended around 1995, where I had a chance to meet and talk with him.  I later discussed some of my work with him by e-mails.

Domasio and his wife (another superstar) visited us twice, but I didn't get a chance to talk with them close-up.  The Domasio team has written several of the best books in the field of brain science, IMO.

Well unfortunately for me I don’t do study groups with intellectuals.  Hell I don’t even play chess anymore so there’s that lol.

All I do is sit around work and listen to stupid podcasts like Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan.  Once in a while I can enjoy Andrew Huberman but that guy really packs a lot into an episode lol.

What has your brain trust contributed to you?

Mine has me sleeping better and doing deadlifts lol.

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