Originally Posted by Lazors
I'm arguing for using science as a lens of observation without giving it a monopoly on the things it's worse at explaining. What exactly it's bad at explaining is hard to define, because in my view it lies beyond the communication of words. Words is simply a model of understanding that fits the wide majority, but in terms of expressive power, it's very low on the scale. Maybe because the brain doesn't process words directly, but has to translate them into images. Don't know if this applies to more abstract thought.
I'm sure that as a friend of discourse you will hate the idea of having an argument over a concept that cannot be put into words. If you want to view it as a rhetorical trick or a flimsy thought with no argumentative value, that's ok. I know I'm being controversial and possibly very annoying.
Nonsense. That reads as 'I don't know how to explain what I'm thinking, so I'm just going to blame language'. What's holding you back isn't words being shit communicative tools, it's a lack of words. You need more words!
What science fails to explain is not hard to define, and it certainly does not lie beyond the capabilities of language. What you were trying to put into words, is that science does not (/should not) deal with abstract concepts - The domain of science is objective reality, truths.
I think that's the point you wanted to make, if I'm wrong tell me. On the point itself, I don't think science has a monopoly on abstractions at all (maybe you were just saying that it shouldn't, not that it does).
Originally Posted by xero901
I dunno man. I've traveled into hyperspace and saw a reptilian with a Pharaoh's head dress while in the middle of a pyramid. Was it my own imagination? Was it real? What dictates reality? Our senses? I had a complete ego death, warping all of my senses. Of time, presence, feeling, etc. If reality and clear evidence is dictated by the usage of our senses and logical thinking, would that not mean in the conscious state we possess during dreams, that they too are a part of reality?
That's why I make the inference that all of it is a dream projected at us through our senses
Your senses do not dictate reality. They dictate your experience of reality, but they do not dictate reality. Reality exists independent of your senses (reality existed before you were born and will continue to exist after you die). This sort of thinking is dangerously close to solipsism.
You remind me of a uni mate I still occasionally interact with on Facebook. He's big into his psychedelics too and quotes ol' Terence like any good modern hippy. Every now and again I gotta bring him back down to Earth.
There's something to be said for having an open mind, but open it up too far and all sorts of weird shit starts leaking in. Don't view this as me attacking you, view it as me genuinely trying to help you.
Last edited by Ele; Jul 6, 2017 at 04:02 PM.
Originally Posted by Ele
Nonsense. That reads as 'I don't know how to explain what I'm thinking, so I'm just going to blame language'. What's holding you back isn't words being shit communicative tools, it's a lack of words. You need more words!
I expected this sort of criticism. Of course, trying to explain with words that words can explain what words can explain isn't really convincing to me. Is it possible to translate a painting to a text without losing its original intent?
If not, you have to accept at least that the communicative value of art is different from the communicative value of text.
Originally Posted by Ele
What science fails to explain is not hard to define, and it certainly does not lie beyond the capabilities of language. What you were trying to put into words, is that science does not (/should not) deal with abstract concepts - The domain of science is objective reality, truths.
You're right, I was sloppy in distinguishing between science and abstract thought. I see science, art, math, and really all fields of knowledge as lenses to understand the universe. I would say though that science and art stems from the same core, the intuition derived from our observation of patterns. The scientific method is not an automated objective system, it requires intuition because there's no other way you'd know what to test for. There's an endless number of potential causes for a phenomenon, and thus a virtually infinite number of hypotheses. Without intuitive thought the advance of science would be much much slower.
The thing that binds science and art together is that they both take inspiration from the patterns of the world to create their work. Intuition is the subconcious observation of the patterns of the universe. The patterns of the universe is our way of understanding the whole that can never be understood without being split into smaller parts.
(I'm echoing Pirsig a lot here)
Also, forgot to address this:
Originally Posted by Ezeth
Also science and reason doesn't do shit to art, you can still express how you feel through imagery without science standing in the way. You can still have mindfullness and be at one with yourself without mixing in religion as well.
If you swallow the idea that art is beyond science and reason, and there are ideas that cannot be translated into words, you must accept that there is something bigger that we cannot understand. If that isn't the definition of God I don't know what is.
Last edited by Lazors; Jul 6, 2017 at 07:56 PM.
Brendan (he who passeth judgement on the frequent changing of signatures): I don't do hentai anymore
Originally Posted by Ele
Your senses do not dictate reality. They dictate your experience of reality, but they do not dictate reality. Reality exists independent of your senses (reality existed before you were born and will continue to exist after you die). This sort of thinking is dangerously close to solipsism.
This is where I go back to the idea of collective unconscious.
EDIT:
Well it is solipsism. If reality existed independent of my senses, what proof do I have of that other than my senses?
Originally Posted by Ele
You remind me of a uni mate I still occasionally interact with on Facebook. He's big into his psychedelics too and quotes ol' Terence like any good modern hippy. Every now and again I gotta bring him back down to Earth.
There's something to be said for having an open mind, but open it up too far and all sorts of weird shit starts leaking in. Don't view this as me attacking you, view it as me genuinely trying to help you.
I like how you view my thinking as harmful. It's actually quite humorous. No, believe me bro. I was the exact same way before I started experiencing really out there shit happening in my life. Like biblical quotes written on the wall perfectly fitting into the context of the situation I faced, people I had known forever ago meeting up in weird times in my life, thoughts I had months, years, or days ago manifesting in the most random ways. Conversations I've had with shamanistic people, learning Qi-gong, experiencing Deja Vu in weird checkpoints of my life where I found myself maturing and growing up. Visions of Alex Grey paintings and St Germaine's ascension through third eye meditation, etc.
It's very much a everything is and everything isn't kind of thing, I believe. I don't go too far into the 'everything is fake' head trip, but I don't allow the ego to be so attached to the world to think that it needs to hold on to something that is so ever changing and fluid. I find a center between the two and engage life in that mindset.
Edit: I feel as if there's a big misconception here on my actual intelligence and disposition because I'm playing the devil's advocate here with the spiritual talk. But believe me when I say I've been on the opposite of the argument plenty of times as an egotistical atheist.
Originally Posted by Lazors
If you swallow the idea that art is beyond science and reason, and there are ideas that cannot be translated into words, you must accept that there is something bigger that we cannot understand. If that isn't the definition of God I don't know what is.
S a v a g e
Edit: That's another thing, you guys are completely ignoring the repeatable visions, symbols, and archetypes that pop up in many grand mal psychedelic trips. There's a reason why Alex Grey paints the shit that he does, there's a reason why people recite violet flame mantras, there's a reason why people talk of sacred geometry so much. It can't just all be ingrained in our own brains with the evolutionary timeline spreading as far as it does. It /has/ to come from somewhere. Like the study done on Japanese monkeys from Mt. Fuji attempting to wash and eat sweet potatoes. The researchers saw that the monkeys had started chilling in Fuji's hot springs a couple of hundred years ago when they had witnessed humans doing it.
So they attempted to give them dirty sweet potatoes and teach them how to wash them and eat it. Also to see if they could spread the information around and teach the group. They did. So the researchers move onto another island completely separate, but within the same vicinity from the other to attempt this experiment.
Despite never conducting the experiment, all the monkeys already knew how to wash sweet potatoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect
Edit: Another thing, if people aren't asking for your help. And if you think 'helping' someone is flexing your own ego at them, attempting to invalidate their opinion as drug-fueled rambling, you got too much to work with in your own head to be working in mine brah.
Last edited by Xer0; Jul 6, 2017 at 08:43 PM.
Click Here To Learn MMA today!
If there is effort, there is always accomplishment. - Jigoro Kano
If there is effort, there is always accomplishment. - Jigoro Kano
Originally Posted by Lazors
Is it possible to translate a painting to a text without losing its original intent?
If not, you have to accept at least that the communicative value of art is different from the communicative value of text.
I think it is possible. I reckon' most authors of the painting could easily do that (unless they're the sort that just paint whatever, randomly). Will viewers of the art be able to do that? Likely not, but that's not because words can't explain it, it's just because rarely will an interpretation of art be in line with the artist's intention.
That said, yeah, there's different communicative value between pictures and words. I still think words are not on the 'low' end of the 'communicative value scale' (sounds fancy).
Originally Posted by Lazors
I expected this sort of criticism. Of course, trying to explain with words that words can explain what words can explain isn't really convincing to me.
Well apparently it was.
Originally Posted by Lazors
You're right, I was sloppy in distinguishing between science and abstract thought.
Originally Posted by Lazors
If you swallow the idea that art is beyond science and reason, and there are ideas that cannot be translated into words, you must accept that there is something bigger that we cannot understand. If that isn't the definition of God I don't know what is.
This wasn't addressed to me, but that's just classic 'God of the gaps' thinking.
Originally Posted by xero901
Well it is solipsism. If reality existed independent of my senses, what proof do I have of that other than my senses?
If you want to indulge in that degree of self-delusion then there's nothing I or anyone else can do to convince you otherwise.
Originally Posted by xero901
yada yada Qi-gong, yada yada third-eye, yada yada vision of Alex Gray paintings, yada yada
Mhm.
Originally Posted by xero901
Edit: Another thing, if people aren't asking for your help. And if you think 'helping' someone is flexing your own ego at them, attempting to invalidate their opinion as drug-fueled rambling, you got too much to work with in your own head to be working in mine brah.
You said yourself that your opinion was supported by your drug-use. Fuck me for repeating you, ey? I wasn't aggressive with you at all. Fuck me for trying to get you to realise that that the world exists beyond your senses... I'm a real cunt, ey?
Originally Posted by Ele
If you want to indulge in that degree of self-delusion then there's nothing I or anyone else can do to convince you otherwise.
Mhm.
You said yourself that your opinion was supported by your drug-use. Fuck me for repeating you, ey? I wasn't aggressive with you at all. Fuck me for trying to get you to realise that that the world exists beyond your senses... I'm a real cunt, ey?
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/...ominem-Abusive
You're not being aggressive? You're totally ego tripping right now brah. My rambling might have been had some drug usage along the way, but I assure you I've read, studied, and researched enough to understand at-least the broad paradigm of which the New Age beliefs sits in. While I recognize I truly don't know as deeply as I want to on these different subjects, I know enough to see legitimate evidence backed up behind certain trains of thought. Of which, I've attempted to communicate to you. But you're continuing to invalidate my argument without attempting to understand my perspective at all.
Ignorance.
Last edited by Xer0; Jul 7, 2017 at 06:19 PM.
Click Here To Learn MMA today!
If there is effort, there is always accomplishment. - Jigoro Kano
If there is effort, there is always accomplishment. - Jigoro Kano
