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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
 Posted - 05/28/2011 : 07:49:13
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Don Juan, the Mexican Yaqui Indian shaman, tells Carlos Castaneda the following:
"We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The Predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so... I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner!
"This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico ... They took us over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance. just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros. Therefore, their food is always available to them."
"No, no, no, no," [Carlos replies] "This is absurd don Juan. What you're saying is something monstrous. It simply can't be true, for sorcerers or for average men, or for anyone."
"Why not?" don Juan asked calmly. "Why not? Because it infuriates you? ... You haven't heard all the claims yet. I want to appeal to your analytical mind. Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradictions between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behaviour. Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of belief, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal."
"'But how can they do this, don Juan? [Carlos] asked, somehow angered further by what [don Juan] was saying. "'Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?"
"'No, they don't do it that way. That's idiotic!" don Juan said, smiling. "They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous manoeuvre
stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous manoeuvre from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. (http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/R-complex )The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now."
"I know that even though you have never suffered hunger... you have food anxiety, which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its manoeuvre is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear."
"The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were quite ill at ease with the idea of when [the predator] made its appearance on Earth. They reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights, feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays. And then, everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man. What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He's an average piece of meat."
"There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic."
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"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 09:25:44 [Permalink]
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Ummmm... Not sure what to make of this. I do know that Carlos Castaneda pretty much wrote fiction, even though his books are foolishly put into the non fiction section of the book stores. Sort of like Whitley Strieber's alien abduction books.
Castaneda was all the rage when I went to school. But in those days people were also dropping lots of LSD. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 11:44:02 [Permalink]
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Fiction...non-fiction...the line between the two has long since been blurred. What's important are the themes, and how effectively they resound in any given culture. Orwell's 1984 is "fictional", sure, but to what degree can we dismiss it as anything but -- to what degree does his art imitate life (or even vice-versa)? Were the "Theory and Practice of Oligarchal Collectivism" a non-fictional document, it's impact wouldn't increase or lessen substantially, so long as it's themes relate to the real world.
Whether Castaneda was being metaphorical or literal with his "predator" reference, we can be sure that the current mental state of human beings, collectively, is abnormal. This is highlighted by Don Juan when he asked: "how do you explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer, and the stupidity of his systems of belief". For all of our ingenuity and intelligence our society is still structured on primitive principles of predatorial pre-eminence, albeit with more sophistication than previous eras. Look at how easy it is for us to forget the lessons of the past and slip back into the same types of dogmatic thinking that were once rebelled against(im referring to the "skeptic mentality" at current). "God is dead!" as Nietzsche would say, and yet with our hard earned newfound freedom of thought we've only moved steps towards total annihalation -- just a mushroom cloud away! Man is still very much an irrational animal, a product of his enviroment, and thus a malleable puppet to whoever, or whatever, supplies that enviroment..."We're on a road to nowhere..." |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 11:58:09 [Permalink]
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| Castaneda was all the rage when I went to school. But in those days people were also dropping lots of LSD. |
Yeah, Castaneda's time was right at the onset of that whole counter-culture. He himself admits that he experimented with psychedelics, but his purposes for doing so are explained as being means rather than ends. |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 12:04:50 [Permalink]
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teched246:
Fiction...non-fiction...the line between the two has long since been blurred. |
I'll grant you that people have been pretty sloppy about where to put books in the book store that claim to be non-fiction but really are works of fiction. And yeah, there is plenty of fiction that is rife with meaning and warnings about the pitfalls of being human and the human condition. That's what the best fiction does. But that doesn't make it non-fiction. I'm not willing to go down that post-modernist road with you.
teched246:
Whether Castaneda was being metaphorical or literal with his "predator" reference, we can be sure that the current mental state of human beings, collectively, is abnormal. |
That statement is self contradictory. What is normal is what is the norm. Abnormal falls outside of what is normal. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 12:40:14 [Permalink]
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If you look around and decide that everyone else is crazy, I have bad news for you. They are all normal, and you are the one with the problem.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 13:37:46 [Permalink]
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| What is normal is what is the norm. Abnormal falls outside of what is normal. |
Difference of opinion, I suppose. The "norm" as I know it, is just a set of ideas and values manufactured or allowed by society's movers and shakers. They don't have to be grounded in anything "natural", or even "factual". They can be abstractions alterable at a whim, in so far as the manufacturers have influence over the majority.
Religion is still a norm, yet it's not normal for people of average intelligence to still partake in it; it's abnormal. The idea of a flat earth was once a norm, but that doesn't mean those who argued against it weren't mentally abnormal. The only sense in which I see those people who argued against the flat earth as being abnormal, is that they were anomalies or in the very small minority, but what does it say about us if our criteria for normalcy is based purely on consensus. That in itself is abnormal. Then again, maybe im getting lost in semantics... |
"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 13:57:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
| What is normal is what is the norm. Abnormal falls outside of what is normal. |
Difference of opinion, I suppose. The "norm" as I know it, is just a set of ideas and values manufactured or allowed by society's movers and shakers. They don't have to be grounded in anything "natural", or even "factual". They can be abstractions alterable at a whim, in so far as the manufacturers have influence over the majority.
Religion is still a norm, yet it's not normal for people of average intelligence to still partake in it; it's abnormal. The idea of a flat earth was once a norm, but that doesn't mean those who argued against it weren't mentally abnormal. The only sense in which I see those people who argued against the flat earth as being abnormal, is that they were anomalies or in the very small minority, but what does it say about us if our criteria for normalcy is based purely on consensus. That in itself is abnormal. Then again, maybe im getting lost in semantics...
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So how limited is your vocabulary? Why do you replace words like "correct" or "incorrect" and phrases like "based on the evidence of the time" with "normal" and "abnormal"? To paraphrase a line from The Princes Bride, I don't think you are using those words correctly. Or to put this in a way that you might understand, you are using the word, "abnormal" abnormally...
You are also conflating the use of the word "abnormal" in the psychological sense with "abnormal" in the cultural sense. Context is everything. Yes, atheists are outside of the norm. But neither the psychology of religious people or atheists is outside the norm.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2011 : 17:36:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by teched246
Fiction...non-fiction...the line between the two has long since been blurred. |
That doesn't mean they're interchangeable. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter if Jesus' stories were based on earlier myths.| What's important are the themes, and how effectively they resound in any given culture. |
Well, the Bible certainly resonates with a huge percentage of our population. I guess we should consider that more important than whether it's mythical.| Orwell's 1984 is "fictional", sure, but to what degree can we dismiss it as anything but -- to what degree does his art imitate life (or even vice-versa)? |
You're getting things backwards. 1984 was a commentary on then-current politics. Making references to the book regarding today's politics is nothing more than a short-hand based on common themes, and not anything deep.| Whether Castaneda was being metaphorical or literal with his "predator" reference, we can be sure that the current mental state of human beings, collectively, is abnormal. This is highlighted by Don Juan when he asked: "how do you explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer, and the stupidity of his systems of belief". |
Castaneda certainly wasn't unique or original (or even profound) in contrasting human ingenuity with human gullibility.| Look at how easy it is for us to forget the lessons of the past and slip back into the same types of dogmatic thinking that were once rebelled against(im referring to the "skeptic mentality" at current). |
Since when is dogmatism a "skeptic mentality?" |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2011 : 04:30:56 [Permalink]
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So teched246 do you really believe that? SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2011 : 08:14:21 [Permalink]
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teched246 wrote: | Fiction...non-fiction...the line between the two has long since been blurred. |
*rolls eyes* No. Most things fit pretty clearly into one of the two categories. For instance, 1984 is explicitly a novel - fiction. Where the Joy of Cooking is a cook book - nonfiction. There are some types of books that blur the lines, but they do so openly and intentionally as part of the literary style, such as the Gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson. Memoirs and histories often fill in holes of memory or records with speculation or content which makes for a more compelling narrative, but if people just start wildly making shit up under the guise of a nonfictional genre, that is considered unethical. That's why Hunter S. Thompson called his "journalism" a special kind and included exaggerations so extraordinary that no rational person would confuse them for fact. For instance, if I were writing a memoir and I thought it would just make a better story to say that a named colleague used to be addicted to heroine, that would be just a total lie, and I could get successfully sued for liable. Of course there are people who do lie while writing nonfiction, but that is a violation of what the genre is supposed to represent and should be called such rather than just shrugging our shoulders and dismissing all fiction and nonfiction as indistinguishable sources of facts.
| What's important are the themes, and how effectively they resound in any given culture. |
No. Facts are also important, and nonfiction is a source of facts as well as themes.
| Were the "Theory and Practice of Oligarchal Collectivism" a non-fictional document, it's impact wouldn't increase or lessen substantially, so long as it's themes relate to the real world. |
And part of the way we measure how well and idea actually does relate to the real world is by verifying the facts claimed to support the idea. Don't know about you, but most of the philosophical and political opinions I hold are directly connected to my understanding of factual reality. If I were to discover that many important facts I previously knew were false, it could radically change my philosophical and political views.
| Whether Castaneda was being metaphorical or literal with his "predator" reference, we can be sure that the current mental state of human beings, collectively, is abnormal. |
I agree with the other guys that have criticized your use of the word "abnormal." But it seems you are trying to say that Casteneda was creativity highlighting the huge contradictions in most human thinking - our ability to hold contradictory ideas and our ability to understand incredibly complex ideas while also holding ideas that are plainly illogical. Do I have that right? If so, I'd argue that that is pretty normal for human beings. And I'd also argue that there are growing scientific explanations for our abilities to compartmentalize and for generally smart people to hold ridiculous beliefs. There is also evidence that oftentimes our ability to do this has benefited our survival.
| Look at how easy it is for us to forget the lessons of the past and slip back into the same types of dogmatic thinking that were once rebelled against(im referring to the "skeptic mentality" at current). |
What about the "skeptic mentality" at current? Most people do not claim to have a skeptic mentality and in fact skepticism is more often associated with cynicism and faith is much more of a championed value than doubt and uncertainty. I have associated with people within the "skeptical" community for over a decade now, and my observation is that while there are always wackos in any community and movement, overall what I see is a wide variety of opinions and conclusions about a variety of matters, a lot of open mindedness (but not so much that our brains fall out) and curiosity. So I really have no idea what you are talking about and I'd love for you to explain (in your own words, not just quoting others.)
| "God is dead!" as Nietzsche would say, and yet with our hard earned newfound freedom of thought we've only moved steps towards total annihalation -- just a mushroom cloud away! |
What are you talking about? There have been nukes set off and mankind is still here. Total annihalation of the human species is much more than a mushroom cloud away.
| Man is still very much an irrational animal, a product of his enviroment, and thus a malleable puppet to whoever, or whatever, supplies that enviroment..."We're on a road to nowhere..." |
Do you just have a bunch of vague things to say about doom and the end of the world or do you have anything specific to say? What is your point? What are you suggesting?
And can you PLEASE fix the damned spelling error in the title of this thread? I know spelling and grammar errors happens - I make them all the time. But it is REALLY hard to take the conversation seriously with such a glaring error right in the title.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 05/29/2011 08:18:11 |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2011 : 10:28:15 [Permalink]
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"They gave us their mind"
Well, what's left of them...
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Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590 |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2011 : 10:54:14 [Permalink]
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| Fiction...non-fiction...the line between the two has long since been blurred. |
That doesn't mean they're interchangeable. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter if Jesus' stories were based on earlier myths. |
Biblical philosophy is largely dependent (if not entirely) on whether or not the events recorded in the bible are non-fictional. Paul admits this in Corinthians:
1Cr 15:13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
1Cr 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.
1Cr 15:15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
1Cr 15:16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Cr 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith [is] vain; ye are yet in your sins.
...Etc
If "sin" and "original sin" are not real phenomena then, ultimately, christianity's central philosophy of "redemption" is false.
| What's important are the themes, and how effectively they resound in any given culture. |
Well, the Bible certainly resonates with a huge percentage of our population. I guess we should consider that more important than whether it's mythical |
It resonates for all the wrong reasons i.e illusions (superstition in place of science), ignorance of human psychology, etc. Don Juan, on the other hand, was asserting a widespread and long held belief based on scientifically proven premises. For him, the contrast between human behaviour and human intelligence was abnormal enough to warrant investigations into the forces that shape and mold human society given that, whatever triggers our primitive, animalistic behaviours to the point of abnormality, seems to be external. Naturally, at our stage in evolution we ought be in full control -- or at least in much greater control -- of our primitive nature. Lo and behold, it's actually admitted that almost every aspect of our society has been meticulously structured to stimulate the animalistic vestiges of our brains.
| Orwell's 1984 is "fictional", sure, but to what degree can we dismiss it as anything but -- to what degree does his art imitate life (or even vice-versa)? |
You're getting things backwards. 1984 was a commentary on then-current politics. Making references to the book regarding today's politics is nothing more than a short-hand based on common themes, and not anything deep |
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How's that ever elusive phantom of a political device, Bin Laden (Goldstein)...you know, that "old serpent" who didn't like us because we're "rich and free"; the defiler of american innocence who we supposedly cast back down to the depths from whence he came  You don't have to be a christian to fall for same ruses.
Orwell's strikingly prophetic (technologically and politcally) novel is more relevant today than it ever was. With the near-full brunt of economic and political pressures bearing down on the middle class it is only matter of time before the following comes true:
"...It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars,revolutions, and counter-revolutions in all parts of the world that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked-outpolitical theories. But they had been foreshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious. What kind of people would control this world had been equally obvious. The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the workingclass, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This last difference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens underconstant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time. ..." - Theory and Practice of Oligarchal Collectivism
"then-current" politics my ass.
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"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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teched246
Skeptic Friend
123 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2011 : 15:12:54 [Permalink]
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marfnox writes: | And part of the way we measure how well an idea actually does relate to the real world is by verifying the facts claimed to support the idea. Don't know about you, but most of the philosophical and political opinions I hold are directly connected to my understanding of factual reality. |
Opinions like, 4000 U.S citizens were slaughtered on american soil by angry extremists living in caves halfway across the globe?
| If I were to discover that many important facts I previously knew were false, it could radically change my philosophical and political views. |
I'll hold you to that. Let's test the skeptic's capacity for acceptance and denial. In 1996 (5 years prior to 9/11) a movie titled A Long Kiss Goodnight was released. The plot consisted of espionage, assasination, false identities etc. At the film's climax it is revealed to the protagonist that the CIA was responsible for the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center by muslims. Immediatley afterwards the antagonist goes on to reveal another plot by the powers that be to slaughter 4000 U.S citizens and blame it on muslims for whatever purpose. Now I haven't followed much of your political discourse, marfnox, but im assuming that you believe in "democracy" and your political leanings are of the liberal persuasion.(?) Where do you stand if it's true that the powers that be are nothing like what they appear to be (psychopathic, murderous, insidious, and have the most nefarious agendas imaginable in reality), and that the democracy that we think we live in is a farce?
| Whether Castaneda was being metaphorical or literal with his "predator" reference, we can be sure that the current mental state of human beings, collectively, is abnormal. |
I agree with the other guys that have criticized your use of the word "abnormal." But it seems you are trying to say that Casteneda was creativity highlighting the huge contradictions in most human thinking - our ability to hold contradictory ideas and our ability to understand incredibly complex ideas while also holding ideas that are plainly illogical. Do I have that right? If so, I'd argue that that is pretty normal for human beings. And I'd also argue that there are growing scientific explanations for our abilities to compartmentalize and for generally smart people to hold ridiculous beliefs. |
Human gullibility is subsumed as a byproduct of primitive behaviour. The general contrast is between primitive human behaviour and the thought processes of our higher mental faculties -- between the R-Complex and the Neo-Cortex. Sure, there's all sorts of studies in the pathological tendencies of humans, but when compounded with the findings in evolutionary and animal psychology abnormalities are revealed. The degree to which the R-Complex is active in the homo species at this stage in it's evolution is disproportionate with with the previous stages'; it's akin to the sudden re-activation of our appendix.
| There is also evidence that oftentimes our ability to do this has benefited our survival. |
No, it's conducive to the survival of our way of life. If the military was sent to the Middle East to fight wars under the pretense that they would be combating terrorism and stabalizing that region, when in actual fact their purpose there is the aquisition of oil fields and to appease our zionist overlords who control Wall Street, I would say that, mass denial of the latter and cognitive dissonance is conducive to the survival of our way of life.
| What about the "skeptic mentality" at current? Most people do not claim to have a skeptic mentality and in fact skepticism is more often associated with cynicism and faith is much more of a championed value than doubt and uncertainty. I have associated with people within the "skeptical" community for over a decade now, and my observation is that while there are always wackos in any community and movement, overall what I see is a wide variety of opinions and conclusions about a variety of matters, a lot of open mindedness (but not so much that our brains fall out) and curiosity. So I really have no idea what you are talking about and I'd love for you to explain (in your own words, not just quoting others.) |
You're contrasting oppo-sames. "Faith" in the religious context is nothing more than the neurotic tendency to retain one's beliefs despite overwhelming counter-evidence, or to dismiss and ignore anything adverse to those beliefs. Basically, it's denial as a learned behaviour. Cynicism, which is now sugarcoated as "skepticism", involves similar or the same mental exercises. It's disposition against the unconventional and unorthodox is no different than what the religious show towards the avant-garde or the "heretical".
| "God is dead!" as Nietzsche would say, and yet with our hard earned newfound freedom of thought we've only moved steps towards total annihalation -- just a mushroom cloud away! |
What are you talking about? There have been nukes set off and mankind is still here. Total annihalation of the human species is much more than a mushroom cloud away. |
There hasn't been a nuke set off as an act of war since WWII, and that took place at the infancy stages of nuclear proliferation. If anything like that were to occur at present day it would spell out an apocolyptic chain-reaction.
We came so far in our understanding and ingenuity, and yet none of that affected the collective foolishness that led to Man's decision to produce the means and looming situation of total annihalation. What im getting at is, how this could possibly reflect that contrast between Man, the engineer and the Man, the brainless beast. Moreover, at no other time in recorded human history has Man come this close to unveiling the underside of his psychic tapestry -- confronted with his own nakedness -- and yet it seems that his progress therein is directly correlated with his self-destruction. This too, seems to be evident or reflective of external tampering with the human mind.
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"For all things have been baptized in the well of eternity and are beyond good
and evil; and good and evil themselves are but intervening shadows and damp
depressions and drifting clouds.Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy
when I teach: 前ver all things stand the heaven Accident, the heaven
Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness." -Nietzsche |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2011 : 17:06:04 [Permalink]
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teched246:
Human gullibility is subsumed as a byproduct of primitive behaviour. The general contrast is between primitive human behaviour and the thought processes of our higher mental faculties -- between the R-Complex and the Neo-Cortex. Sure, there's all sorts of studies in the pathological tendencies of humans, but when compounded with the findings in evolutionary and animal psychology abnormalities are revealed. The degree to which the R-Complex is active in the homo species at this stage in it's evolution is disproportionate with with the previous stages'; it's akin to the sudden re-activation of our appendix. |
Ummmmm... That was a mouthful. Why do you think we shouldn't still have primitive tendencies? We aren't that old as a species you know. And every species carries a lot of evolutionary baggage. But here I am trying to be reasonable and after having read all of your post, I don't see the point.
Hey teched246. Are you also concerned about shape shifting alien lizards, or is that a conspiracy that got by you? Some think the lizards are analogous to those " zionist overlords who control Wall Street" and that David Icke has just gone too far in thinking they are actually lizards... So let's see. You are a "truther" and what else?
And you know. Castaneda wound up selling $600 dollar a person sessions on "Tensegrity." He was a conman.
| Don Juan was a Yaqui Indian from Yuma, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico, and the heir to a lineage of seers that originates in Mexico of ancient times, and whose goal and purpose was freedom of perception庸reedom to perceive what quantum physics now recognizes as the essential nature of the universe: a universe of energy, which according to those Mexican seers, is organized by a force of intelligence called intent. |
New age garbage that Castaneda came up with. It's still for sale if you are up for it.
Friends, I think we have a live one!!! |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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ThorGoLucky
Snuggle Wolf
USA
1487 Posts |
Posted - 08/02/2011 : 15:46:19 [Permalink]
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Is this the humans-couldn't-have-possibly-evolved-intelligence-and-therefor-were-uplifted-by-a-cosmic-intelligence-or-space-aliens claim?
Basically quantum physics makes chemistry, and we and our primate brains live in the world of chemistry. Quantum weirdness happens on the subatomic level and does not apply to us macroscopic beings. |
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They gave us their mind
