William has taken exception to the current state of science and its ‘overreach’.
He claims, “IMO, all that is left of materialism/physicalism/naturalism is really nothing more than a hidden (even subconscious) anti-theistic agenda.”
This is a thread for William to guide us in a detailed exploration of the alternatives, their mechanisms, how we might test them and how we might benefit from them.
OMagain said:
[sarcasm]
Oh, yes, that’s what I’m concerned about. Looking good. To this specific group. You figured me out!
[/sarcasm]
I’ve noticed in the past that it does not do to wear mismatching socks. Also, people seem to like double windsors more than single knots. Though while many people have taken to wearing pinstripes these days, I myself confess to no great love for them.
William,
They aren’t separable. If you want to have the experience of sunning on the beach in Mazatlan, certain truths become important: the truth of which airlines and which flights are going to Mazatlan, the truth of whether there are open seats on those flights, the truth of whether you obtain a reservation on one of them, the truth of when your flight leaves, and from which airport, and so on.
That’s interesting. I broke my statement down into parts.
Which of a), b), and c) do you disagree with?
keiths,
I have separated them, your insistence otherwise notwithstanding.
I’m not a beach or a sun person, but let’s use the example anyway arguendo. Your question “if you want to have the experience of sunning on the beach in Mazatlan” assumes a characterisic about me that is inapplicable. It assumes that I want to be in Mazatlan sunning on the beach. Or, replace that with any specific envisioned scenario.
That has absolutely no place in how I live my life. I am utterly uninterested in specific scenarios. No, this doesn’t mean I have always been this way. With my wife’s cancer, for example, I wanted a specific scenario – but that was before I was into visualization and intentionalization techniques, and well before I developed my own model based on my own experiences.
What I came to realize many years ago through trial and error is that I rarely know what is best for me in terms of my goal of enjoying life as a good person. I rarely know what scenarios will provide my sense of enjoyment and being a good person. I’ll give you a case in point.
I’ve never been a particular animal lover. Animals love me, and I don’t mind them, but I’ve never been the kind of person to take care of an animal so I never had them, and if my spouse had one, it was her responsibility. There was absolutely no envisionment or expectation on my part that any pet of any sort would do anything other than take enjoyment away from my life.
However, through experience, I have learned that I cannot judge what my experience is going to be when certain scenarios play out. I may think “that’s going to be awesome!” and it turns out that my experience in that scenario is anything but awesome. Some things have appeared to me to be something to avoid, and it turns out great. I learned to dismiss my own scenario evaluations and to do what I call god (my intentionalized subconscious, universal mind, whatever you call it) puts in front of me to do, no matter what my initial, superficial reaction to it is.
One christmas day a couple of friends of ours showed up with a completely unexpected Christmas gift – a six month old old Pekinese puppy. As soon as I laid eyes on that dog, I thought, oh joy, crap and pee all over the house, incessant yapping, and then at some point I’ll be driving out into the countryside with the dog and a gun and then have to lie to my wife and tell her that the dog ran away.
Then I stopped myself and my self-training kicked in about doing what god puts in front of me to do with as open a heart as possible, without bias (as much as possible), just to see what actually happens in my actual experience, instead of submitting myself to a predisposed narrative about what the situation would most likely mean to my experience.
Long story short, I love that little dog. He has brought us so much joy and love it’s hard to describe. That’s the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. That dog is smarter and has more presence of mind and politeness than most humans I’ve encountered. My enjoyment of life and sense of being a good person has been immeasurably enhanced just by the ridiculous addition of one little dog to the equation.
So you see, keiths, I honestly do not know which scenario I would prefer, because I don’t know what the ultimate result would be in terms of my being able to enjoy existence as a good person. Since I hold the view that there is a very enjoyable life after death, the idea of physically dying doesn’t bother me. As far as my wife suffering, we have gone through some tough times, like when her father died of Parkinsons. As crazy as that sounds, that experience actually ended up amazingly good for me, and as far as I can tell, for her too. Sometimes tragedy is the pathway towards something much greater and more profound than anything I can imagine or expect.
William,
Thank you for sharing the story of your dog. I’m glad you discovered how fulfilling the love of a pet can be. I’ve gotten a similar joy from the cats who have been a part of my life.
Regarding your larger point, I don’t disagree that good can sometimes come out of seemingly bad situations. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we still try to avoid bad situations, and for compelling reasons.
If I’m traveling on back roads in the desert, I take water with me. I’ll bet you would too. Why? Because even though there is a very slight chance that dying of thirst could somehow turn out to be a wonderful experience, it’s far more likely to be horrible. Plus, I still have a lot of living to do, so I’m not trying to hasten my death.
So I carry water. Wouldn’t you?
If so, then you care about truths: the truth that the desert is hot, and that water is scarce. The truth that there is very little traffic on some of the dirt roads, and that you’re on your own if your vehicle breaks down. The truth that human bodies require water, and the truth that dying of thirst is a painful experience. And so on.
If you don’t want the experience of dying of thirst in the desert — and who does? — then you need to take truths into account.
To be honest, I’d not be able to live with myself were I to act as you do. So looking good to others can only start from the inside out.
You’ve invented “raw FSCO/I” as an alternative to the FSCO/I you have not been able to calculate. Rather then admit you cannot calculate it in the way that it can be used by KF to “demonstrate” that proteins are designed you invent a new thing instead, “raw FSCO/I”.
You’ve calculated nothing exhaustively. You’ve measured the length of a string.
Oh well, it’s all here in black and white for ever now. Any interested party can see for themselves how FSCO/I is or is not calculated according to WJM.
And it still has not been computed. If you were to compute as per your protein example, i.e:
then that would be something meaningful. But that you compute “raw” FSCO/I (merely the length of a string) and somehow claim that has some relation to what would be computed if you were to perform the above calculation (your words!) is laughable. It’s the difference between a sketch of a space shuttle and building one.
The point is while it might be possible to calculate FSCO/I is it feasable to do so in practice? Glance at UD and it would seem FSCO/I proves intelligent design of proteins.
You talk as if it is a done deal, you don’t call out KF and Gpuccio for acting as if it has been done and so what am I to conclude? Seems to me you are a cheerleader for ID that does not actually care if what they are promoting is valid, as long as it achieves the goal of “anything but evolution”.
If you want to cheer lead for a bunch of liars then do so. But expect to be called on it over and over and over
Try changing your mind when shown to be in error rather then insist that you were right all along. You are in error regarding FSCO/I and, for whatever reason, are incapable of admitting it.
That would be a start. Or, you know, keep on going as you are claiming that FSCO/I can be calculated then calculating “raw FSCO/I” when asked to demonstrate and then wonder why you are getting called on it.
keiths asks:
I’ve been through the desert. Didn’t have water, a cell phone or even a spare tire. Tire went flat. First thought was, “okay, we’re going to die out here.” Then my self-training kicked in. 10 minutes later it turned into one of the most amazing series of events in my life.
I don’t care what reality is; I only care what I actually experience. I do things based upon patterns of experience; I don’t insist my experiences represent any reality “out there”, nor do I insist that my model represents “reality” or any existential “truth”. If this is all a dream or a hallucination, I don’t care.
Oh, you spend more time here then you do anywhere else that I’m aware of. You last OP at UD went down like a lead balloon, nobody at all was interested. The simple fact is that here you can get a conversation and at UD you get the glazed look of the inmates wondering what the hell you are talking about.
So yeah, damm right you are concerned with looking good here or you’d not be back over and over nor so concerned to demonstrate your claims have value.
Why not do that on a regular basis? See how that works out for you? In your dying moments I’m sure you’d think of a few things you’d wish you’d done differently. Like take simple steps to preserve your own life!
I actually feel sorry for your family. That you would presume to put others in that level of danger speaks much to you as a person. Why not get a job as a school bus driver and drive into the desert with only enough fuel for a one way trip? I’m sure wonderful things would also happen there also.
I bet your wife cares. I bet she’d insist you bring water to the desert if you took your child out there.
And as others have pointed out, you break a bone, you visit the ER. Your wife gets cancer, you visit the doctor.
Round of applause for William! He’s discovered a new way of living!
Could I suggest you write a book about your stunning revelation? It’s groundbreaking.
Well, at least it’s amusing 🙂
Here’s something to consider William, it seems to accord with your “viewpoint”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality.html
William goes to the desert unprepared, has a great time.
William points the gun to his head, pulls the trigger, visits a new universe!
Will you be trying that William? It seems to make as much sense as going to the desert unprepared.
What I find amusing is calling people on their claims and watching them squirm and inventing new things that they swear are the same as the thing originally asked about.
All you had to do was admit you were wrong, and you could not actually calculate FSCO/I. Instead you invented something else “raw FSCO/I” and claimed it was just as good as what you could not calculate.
William,
To have the kind of experiences you want requires paying attention to truths.
Suppose you’ve just run out of milk, and you desire the experience of having milk in your refrigerator again. You decide to walk to the corner store to buy some. Does it matter whether you walk there naked or clothed?
Sure. If you (attempt to) walk there naked, then instead of having the desired experience, you may end up in jail or under observation at a psychiatric hospital. You prefer the simpler experience of having milk in your refrigerator, so you pull on some clothes before heading to the store.
Or suppose you are about to take a shower. Does the temperature setting of the water matter? After all, getting second degree burns is just another experience, and maybe it will turn out to be wonderful. Why bother trying to set the water to a comfortable temperature? Just ignore the truths about pain and biology and crank it all the way to “Hot”.
I’ll bet you don’t do that.
Also, why does William bother to put petrol in his car at all for his desert trips?
The reality is cars need petrol, but how does William know that?
Personal pragmatism.
You just try water, honey, sand, mercury, sulfuric acid, and a few hundred other pourable materials, before you hit upon gasoline. At least dozens of automobiles are ruined in the process, but you don’t know until you try.
Most of us just learn what works, then use it, later learning chemistry and thermodynamics to know why. When we could have ruined cars without knowing why.
It’s expensive, but worth it
Glen Davidson
Where can one find “Instant Enlightenment”? it seems to be nonexistent on the web?
I took it off the market.
Hi Joshua,
William isn’t very happy with his three books.
Of the first two, he says:
Regarding Instant Enlightenment, I wrote:
William nixed that idea:
Thank you Keiths,
I’m sorry to hear that, but not surprised for some reason. I got a great deal out of Unconditional Freedom and am very curious as to the continuing evolution (or perhaps total annihilation and replacement) of these views and ideas.
William,
I enjoy your writing and have been wondering for a while if there is other material available beyond the two aforementioned books
Joshua,
Thanks for the kind words. All my philosophical writing these days is pretty much limited to this site and Uncommon Descent. I do it mostly just to work ideas out in my own head.
Another case where methodological pragmatism would have brought us a technological advance ahead of methodological materialism (15 years, in this case):
Why? You forgot to justify your claim there with, you know, reasons.
WJM,
I have a proposal for a perpetual motion machine. How does methodological pragmatism deal with that? Can you talk me through the process?
It isn’t disputed that ridiculed ideas can turn out to be right. The trick is in deciding which ones to back before they are are vindicated, not after.
If we had unlimited resources, you could say ‘all of them’. We don’t.
Allan Miller said:
It requires zero resource to not ridicule an idea before it has even been tested, much less disproved. Ridicule tends to drive what may otherwise disinterested parties away from pursuing or funding research. What’s the point, other than aggressively protecting a priori worldview commitments?
Good question. What’s your answer?
It would be like me telling you that everything you know is wrong, and expecting you to accept that on the basis of my word alone.
Of course, given that’s what you do to others on a regular basis…..
No, that’s not what it would be like. It would be like me telling you some of what you think know is wrong, and expecting you to not ridicule me without first testing my claims. But, that’s the problem when addressing ideological commitments; you take the prospect of being wrong about some things as a personal attack deserving ridicule in response whether or not the new information is valid.
And that’s what’s wrong with “methodological materialism/naturalism”.
Me too. Sharpening the saw is a good thing.
William J. Murray,
I think when you drink from the chalice of woo, you probably deserve a gentle ribbing.
IMO, that’s the difference between a kind and a cruel nature. I get no satisfaction from being cruel.
Remember that conversation about random number generators and PSI and intention and all that?
I offered to help test your* claim! That “intention” can/does/can be shown to affect RNGs. I’ve already written one webapp to demonstrate a principle that was being discussed. I was perfectly prepared to write another.
Can you remember what your response was to that offer?
Quite.
No, what’s wrong is the reason behind why you refused my offer to collaborate on a project that would test those claims. It seems like a logical outcome to such a discussion, no?
It’s like ordering dinner then leaving after it’s arrived but without touching it. Why not take it that one step further and actually test those claims directly?
*But of course, *you* made *no* such actual claim directly, personally did you? etc etc. No need to bother to respond along those lines. Noted already, noted.
William J. Murray,
Did I say I was in favour of ridiculing per se? Don’t believe I did. I said it was hard up front to determine which potentially ridicule-able ideas should be taken seriously, and taken further. Anyone can pick the winners out of yesterday’s paper. For every good idea there are likely to be dozens of laughable ones (which will ever remain so).
Note: Please put in “Guano”, since I can’t just post it there:
OMagain said?
There are several reasons why I didn’t respond to your “offer” – and, generally, why I don’t respond to a lot of what you say. First, I have no expectation that it was offered in good faith. Second, the research – as I quoted and linked to – has been done and is still being done. There’s hardly any reason for us to embark on a “collaboration” to test the theory when qualified scientists are already conducting that very research. Third, it’s my personal opinion that all of this, on your part, is nothing more than rhetorical posturing in order to portray me in the worst light possible, so why would I, even for a second, think that there was any substance or merit to such an “offer” in the first place?
Basically, I consider you a troll, OMagain. I use some things you say when it suits my purposes, but beyond that I think your only real intent on the net is to pester, provoke and ridicule those who – for whatever reason – attract your negative attention.
Allan Miller said:
Did I?
IMO, framing the discussion, as you just did, in terms of sorting through “potentially ridicule-able” and “laughable” scientific claims/research is precisely indicative of the problem, as if it is the place of the scientific community to laugh at or ridicule claims made in earnest by serious scientists with research that backs up their claim.
Its a continuum. Per the original “big boy pants” comment, I’m actually being very gentle with you given your batshit crazy ideas, your indifference to the truth and your inability to learn from perpetually / habitually being wrong yet telling folks what’s what.
As I’ve said the “indifference to being wrong” really is cuckoo, and actually inconsistent with rational discussion. Trying to have a conversation with anyone who really had such an attitude is like trying to discuss the weather with someone who claims to skeptical about the external world and the existence of other people. It makes no sense whatever.
Richardthughes said:
Yes, I”m sure I’m to blame for the cruel nature of your comments.
If you think *they’re* cruel, you should try the real world rather than your imaginary one.
William J. Murray,
Yeah, because the way I phrase a comment is so relevant to the way science is done. Mustn’t laugh at any idea, or even suggest it’s possible that someone might by using the dread word ‘laughable’. Serious face. 🙁 Consider it banned from all further science-related discourse. I will raise it at the next Stonecutters meeting.
Analogy:
I have a friend who wrote a novel. She asked me to read it it and giver her feedback. I gave her a list of suggestions, typos, stuff like that. What I couldn’t bring myself to say that the novel was bland and uninteresting. She self-published as she couldn’t get a publisher to take it on. It didn’t sell.
Would it have been kinder to have been honest?
Only one way to find out. I have a track record of creating such apps. What’s your track record, anything to be proud of?
Yet it was that very thing that was in dispute – the quality of the research.
If I had offered to write the app and you designed it then I did not write the app, who would look worse – you or me?
Takes one to know one.
How To Do It
Yet when I ask “why” that’s considered to be trolling. Well, I guess if you want your statements to be unchallenged then you’d best run off to UD where anyone can say anything without fear of being called on it.
Out of interest, what “qualifications” do you mean? You seem to want to overturn large parts of evolutionary theory on the basis of what, exactly? If only scientists with credentials can take part in science, why do you think *you* can legitimately do so, as you have none that I am aware of.
You pick and choose. It makes you look worse then if you never responded. Which is fine by me.
One can be as kind as possible while still being truthful. Some things one considers to be true don’t need to be said because they’re just not constructive or preventative. I don’t normally say what I think about the nature of several people who comment here because it’s just not something that needs to be said or will contribute to civil conversation. IMO, it wouldn’t be constructive.
OMagain has been insisting that I explain why I won’t respond to his “challenges” or “comments”. I answered him as directly as possible. I honestly think he’s a troll – at least wrt those he disagrees with. I also decided to call out Richardthughes for his habit of being deliberately cruel. So far, his response has been to blame me for his cruelty and then favorably compare his own cruelty against some imagined “greater” cruelty I might potentially have to endure elsewhere. Reminds me of a father justifying his abuse by telling his son he’s going to make him a real man, because the world ain’t no bed of roses (cue Rocky speech).
Note: he hasn’t denied being cruel. He has just been attempting to justify and rationalize his cruelty.
The question is, why would they allow themselves to be like that, and what have I done to provoke such responses from Omagain or Richardthughes? Described a system of living and believing that is different from their own? I’ve never even proselytized it; I’ve never said anyone else should adopt it; I’ve never even claimed my perspective is true or correct. All I’ve said is that it seems to work for me in allowing me to be a relatively happy, sufficiently good person.
It’s not like I torture puppies and it’s not like I advocate any social or political changes they are likely to despise. It seems they (and perhaps some others here) are intent on seeing me a certain way so that they can justify viewing me with contempt and making cruel/derogatory remarks to me regardless of what I say or comment on.
Perhaps in their mind it’s somehow justified. IMO, it’s just an attempt at plain old cruel bullying. It affects me to the degree that at times I have to look away from this site for a while because it’s painful and unsettling to see people behaving like that, even on a discussion board. It’s the same reason I won’t watch TV shows or movies where people are just being cruel and hurtful all the time.
My problem with this site is that outside of maybe a couple of people, it just doesn’t seem to me that most people here are interested at all in being good, kind, gentle souls. Perhaps you are in “real life”, so to speak, but something else comes out here. Some of you are just, IMO, vicious, nasty people – at least in this forum. Others seem to just be looking for reasons to chime in with barbs and sneers now and again.
But, the good news is I can just leave the site for a while or permanently, turn my gaze elsewhere, ignore those who have decided to latch onto my posts with negative attention and deliberate cruelty.
For now, though, I decided to call it out.