From: No name given (vampier@mac.com)
Date: Wed Feb 27 2002 - 16:46:07 MST
On Wednesday, February 27, 2002, at 05:35 PM, L' Ermit wrote:
> [Hermit] The Church of Virus has no dogma. Indeed, we classify dogma as
> a sin. Please visit [url]http://virus.lucifer.com[/url] for more.
I noticed.
> Instead, we consider it not only beneficial but necessary that each
> person come to their own (always tentative and falsifiable) conclusions
> in all matters.
I've been a Unitarian Universalist for a while. When people ask us "why
on earth are you organized together if you don't have any creed?" I
reply:
"If two people encounter each other and they both think they might be
trying to climb the same mountain, in only makes sense that they should
share what they've encountered to help each other out."
Yes, everyone should come to their own conclusions - but offering to
share and "help" with the construction of such conclusions is, indeed, a
quite potentially mutually beneficial process.
> Unfortunately, to many of us, modern life does not appear to be doing a
> very good job of teaching people how to reach conclusions. To that end
> we engage in a process of dialog which is intended to further each
> members ability to reach such conclusions. While we recognize that
> logic and reason cannot open all doors, they offer the only certain way
> of opening some doors. So we respect these tools and seek deliberately
> to maximize our capability to use them, while also recognizing the
> emergent nature of our Universe and the fact that it is complex.
One of my majors during my undergraduate was mathematics. From the basic
Euclidean geometry axioms, I can sit down and have a fun time proving
the Pythagorean theorem and from there a multitude of trigonometric
identities. Likewise, with a little bit of number theory, proving
calculus is quite fun too.
But I stopped and didn't go on to do graduate work in mathematics, but
instead in another subject. Why? Because research - the advancement of
knowledge - requires building upon what others have done - and the vast
number of thousands of years that mathematics has been around made it
such that to find out all that others had done in a particular area, and
then try to develop on it, wasn't something I especially enjoyed -
because I couldn't become so familiar with what was underlying it, and
reach the level of being able to prove everything along the way on my
own.
To advance, we must build upon what went before. If we don't share our
memes regarding the conclusions we've reached about whatever
(specifically regarding coping and self-reliance, amongst others), then
we prevent the possibility of those memes evolving. So I say this (as I
understand from the http://www.churchofvirus.com/about.html about page)
should be a forum for sharing such memes and allowing them to evolve and
grow.
> [Hermit] I find the following thought modii useful. Life is neither
> good nor bad, it is a process of determining and refining our ability
> to enter relationships with others, offering many opportunities to
> experience rewards along the way. Evolution has provided us with a
> brain which has the ability to enjoy abstract thought and the company
> of others. The social nature of people also suggests that we maximize
> our pleasure by maximizing our interactions and contact with others.
> How we realize these potentials is quite probably the greatest single
> separator between men, and determinator of our satisfaction with
> ourselves and our lives.
Should I assume then, that the comments that you are offering above are
suggestions and not "assertions"?
> [Hermit] In other words, we create our own opportunities for joy,
> sorrow and indifference in the way that we live, in the things that we
> do and in the attitudes which we hold. Our nature is such that even if
> we stand to one side, that we will in any case empathize with the hurt
> of others (that is a genetic legacy and one I do not regret). Yet
> standing to one side, we cannot experience their joys. Thus I find that
> indifference offers the fewest rewards, and that while sorrow is hardly
> possible unless we interact with other men, that this also precludes
> the full joy of living.
Your name (Hermit) seems hardly befitting the lifestyle you are
encouraging.
> [Hermit] There are several prerequisites to interrelating successfully
> with others. The ability to communicate effectively, the ability to
> think rationally and act ethically, the characteristics of
> dependability and predictability, an understanding of where we come
> from to determine a context for words and actions, and above all,
> seeing that men tend to react to one another depending on how they are
> treated, the anticipation that you will find the company and pleasures
> of others to be pleasant and pleasing to yourself. That way, you will
> sometimes be disappointed, but I would suggest, not nearly so much as
> those that do not engage in hopeful dialog (who, fortunately for
> themselves, seldom realize how much they are missing).
So this forum should be for the discussion of memes to facilitate the
development of those
abilities/characteristics/understandings/anticipations?
> [Hermit] The emergent nature of the Universe described above implies
> that multiple perspectives are greatly superior to one, and that
> self-enrichment (and true joy) arises from grasping the fact that there
> is an entire, colorful spectrum rather than a dreary landscape in black
> and white or even shades of grey. So the CoV does not attempt to
> capture the world in a word, rather we explore - and enjoy - the
> complexity of the world and our various perspectives of it and
> experiencing the delight of teaching others how to communicate these
> various perspectives effectively.
That last sentence makes this sound like it's some kind of speech
(interpersonal communication) class.
> [Hermit] Sadly, life being good, we all die. It has been argued that
> our purpose is to propagate our genes. I would argue that we can
> already see that we will have to transcend that concept (unless we
> begin to direct our own evolution in an attempt to remain equal to the
> neural networks that I suspect may eventually replace us). I suggest
> that the logical approach is to recognize that it is not our genes
> which are so dreadfully important to propagate, but our memes. In other
> words, what have we contributed to the idea space that we leave behind
> us.
On this, I am willing to tentatively concede that that is the most
probable - but I also fully believe that there's probably a lot more
going on and that there might be other stuff to pass on as_well/instead.
> [Hermit] This seems to be a natural progression for a Virian, and I
> think that Kalkor put it rather nicely in
> [url=http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::W1YUWjMz-IXR_-dRp0-X0N1-JhduLUwfUQUI]
> "virus: Coping and self-reliance (was RE: faith not moribund)", Kalkor,
> Wed Feb 27, 2002 03:05 pm[/url]
Yes, I concur that the definition of self-reliance, as provided there,
is well argued. But it seems about as useful to achieving self-reliance
as the peano postulates are to proving Fermat's last theorem - there's a
lot more to go before one can take those words and turn them into
reality and "cope" with that reality. Which leads me to the coping
aspect....
Kalkor states that coping is best achieved via acceptance of those two
points:
1)The past cannot be changed
2)Doing only things that benefit me, immediately and in the long term,
is the surest way to cope with
having done badly or been done wrong.
I claim that (1) is a belief that could quite possibly be overturned
with the advent of time-travel, and so therefore is not acceptable to a
person with the virtue of "vision".
I also claim that (2) begs the question - it is too shrouded in notions
of "benefit", "badly", and "wrong" to be immediately obviously
applicable.
A more thorough discussion of those terms is relevant before (2) can
have any meaning.
> Regards
>
> Hermit
>
> PS As a brief refresher which may be helpful, the scientific method
> cannot prove anything.
I concur.
> It can of course be used to disprove anything amenable to the
> scientific process - and asserts (stipulating that Hawking radiation is
> information free) that there is nothing which exists outside of a
> singularity which is not amenable to this process. As we cannot
> experience a singularity at this stage of our existence, we can
> simplify this to assert that the scientific method can be applied to
> everything which exists. That is not to suggest that the scientific
> method is perfect, error free or in its final form. It too is emergent
> and provisional (which simply means subject, at least in principle, to
> refutation cf Karl Popper and Popperian falsifiability). This provides
> a glimpse of the three principle differences between the scientific
> method and other ways of considering things. What it addresses must be
> at least founded in observation (most scientists would say, "must be
> founded in an observation"), or it is not possible, even in theory to
> refute it. It is consensual and self-correcting. It progresses most
> rapidly precisely when the most important things we assert through it
> are overturned. These attributes are diametrically opposed to classical
> religions, mysticism, belief and even politics.
Not so close. Consider works such as
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761910131/ref=cm_wl_topnav_books/ref=
cm_mp_wli_/102-8403530-2359342?coliid=I2BGTPD5QQJBQO
Transpersonal Research Methods in the Social Sciences : Honoring Human
Experience
by Rosemarie Anderson (Editor), William Braud (Editor)
This presents the synthesis of the "truths" from mysticism into a
scientific framework that is rigorous and amenable to repeated
experimentation.
> Personally, I would suggest that I have found nothing worthwhile in
> life which cannot be addressed and enjoyed more from this perspective -
> including literature, art, poetry, music, good food, wine and love. All
> of these wonderful aspects of being alive are experienced (observed),
> and the more familiar you are with them and the more you practice
> enjoying them, the more you know of them, the more intensely you can
> engage with them and the greater the enjoyment becomes.
This is sounding like Neo-Epicureanism to me. I hope that's not all I'm
going to find here.
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