The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[Student of Trinity]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I can't imagine any test that could falsify the existence of God. But I think the non-existence of God is equally untestable and unfalsifiable.

I'd say that the non-existence of moderately super-human beings is in principle falsifiable. If enough people saw Superman fly around the world, and met him in person, then the alternative hypothesis of hallucination would eventually have to account for so much mass delusion that it would be much less plausible than the existence of a super-powered Kryptonian among us.

The non-existence of a being like Star Trek's 'Q' would be harder to disprove. That is, it's very hard to prove that a being really has that much power, because it's hard to imagine any possible human experience for which delusion would be a far less plausible explanation than the existence of a being that can juggle galaxies. I mean, which is more parsimonious: one guy (namely me) is deluded, or that snarky guy over there can control vast amounts of space and time?

The non-existence of a monotheist's God would be even harder to disprove, inasmuch as the concept of God is the concept of a being infinitely more powerful even than Q.

This means that it is easier to test the proposition "no superhuman beings exist" than to test the proposition "God does not exist". So if what you want is to support the non-existence of God, but also obey the supposed scientific principle of falsifiability, then your best bet would seem to be to adopt a stronger belief than atheism, and deny the existence of sufficiently superhuman beings. This would mean that your belief becomes more scientifically respectable (because it is falsifiable) precisely by becoming less likely to be true (because the non-existence of a larger class of beings cannot be more probable than the non-existence of a smaller class).

As a matter of fact, I'd say it's pretty doubtful that no superhuman beings exist. The universe is billions of years old, and very big. There are probably some pretty amazing entities out there somewhere. There might not really be any Q's, but there might well be some beings mighty enough that no human could appreciate their true power. So once atheism is extended into nonexistence of a large enough class of superhuman beings to be falsifiable, it also becomes a pretty debatable matter of opinion.

If you think that 'more falsifiable' means 'more scientific' and therefore 'more reliably true', then this seems like a paradox. It's not really a paradox, though, because falsifiability is just not about being surer of being true — and being more scientific is not about that, either. That's the whole point of Popper's analysis of science as being about falsifiability: falsifiability is what science has instead of certainty. If what you want is epistemological high ground, science is the wrong place.

Of course I don't mean to imply that atheists have some kind of obligation to deny Superman, or even to deny the existence of Q, for that matter. I'm just saying that pointing out that theism is unfalsifiable is not a sensible argument against theism. All sufficiently big propositions are unprovable and unfalsifiable. So, necessarily, are their converses. Falsifiability is a nice feature when you can have it, but it is not a form of evidence. It's a different criterion.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I'm embarrassed to admit this but you are right! Looking in the Tech Dictionary, TR2 only is about acknowledging which is a full stop on a communication and which is a method of controlling.

What I was using was a combination of "Listen Style Auditing" paired up with "Half Acknowledgment"

For "Listen Style Auditing" Hubbard says only, "Listen to the pc without evaluating, invalidating or interrupting." For Half Ack, he says, "Somes a pc gets scared or lonesome and you have to give him an uh-huh to encourage him."

So you are correct and I am wrong about attributing my wins to TR2. That being said, those wins still came from Hubbard's tech, a combination of Listen Style Auditing along with Half Acknowledgements. My story as related in my last post did occur but it was a combination of Listen Style Auditing and Half Acks which enabled me to get my co workers to talk.
Lakey

I don't see how listening is auditing. Plus auditing would be a weird instrumentalized form of listening which was additive, more than listening, since it wants to obtain information or result or ep. So listening and auditing is not the same. Listening is being engaged in the other and what they are communicating and means I release myself to the other completely, having no aim of control. Auditing does not fit that. (As I understand it.)

 

[Terril park]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

If people just discussed topics, this garbage pile of a thread wouldn't even be 1 % of it's size - and would be readable. Since you love your stats so much: How many posts are really ON Topic in this thread about "The old days - Apollo 1973"?

Who cares about on topic?

All threads are a movable feast.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Good post. Assuming of course that philosophers who DO grasp this simple concept of "I don't know" are okay, I would totally agree with your post.

i am pretty sure it was meant that way. And I think that 'I don't know' is a good starting point for being on the right track. Almost always when I think I know and am filled with certainty I am nauseous later to learn I was wrong. Hubbard for some reason lacked that corrective trait in himself and so could delude himself in harmful ways, and spread his delusion to others by making it policy. The entire of his system is based on a very solipsistic paranoid view of what communication and the mind are.

 

[Terril park]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Delayed reaction to TR2.

I Don't even like TR2. The 'rule' of enforced ack. What crap.

Sometimes silence is sufficient as an answer. Also, one is free not to acknowledge. I do this and I reserve that ability to hold an answer at bay, to let it fall into a void. I used to get yelled at for not acknowledging. It was quite a telltale now that I look back on what I refused to acknowledge. Now I am glad I didn't do it and proud to have been scolded for it. I like not having to do it unless I choose. And not by ack words either. Unless I feel like it and find it the appropriate response.

Don't know your circumstances.

If one dosn't acknowledge TR4 would seem appropriate.

"Why XYZ, tell me more?"

 

[Terril park]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I'm embarrassed to admit this but you are right! Looking in the Tech Dictionary, TR2 only is about acknowledging which is a full stop on a communication and which is a method of controlling.

What I was using was a combination of "Listen Style Auditing" paired up with "Half Acknowledgment"

For "Listen Style Auditing" Hubbard says only, "Listen to the pc without evaluating, invalidating or interrupting." For Half Ack, he says, "Somes a pc gets scared or lonesome and you have to give him an uh-huh to encourage him."

So you are correct and I am wrong about attributing my wins to TR2. That being said, those wins still came from Hubbard's tech, a combination of Listen Style Auditing along with Half Acknowledgements. My story as related in my last post did occur but it was a combination of Listen Style Auditing and Half Acks which enabled me to get my co workers to talk.
Lakey

The half ack is an essential part of communication. Whether in auditing or
casual chit chat, or serious discussion.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I don't know what to make of this post. Your second sentence makes sense to me as a legitimate point of view. On the first sentence, the only Panda I know is Panda Termint. What domains are being mixed. I like to keep the physical and spiritual domains separate. Vinnay has chosen to mix them in his work, believing that the word Universe, should be used in the fullest sense of the word so there is not a separate physical Universe and spiritual Universe. From my point of view, I like it better when they are separated.
Lakey

I meant a panda bear!!!

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I don't see how listening is auditing. Plus auditing would be a weird instrumentalized form of listening which was additive, more than listening, since it wants to obtain information or result or ep. So listening and auditing is not the same. Listening is being engaged in the other and what they are communicating and means I release myself to the other completely, having no aim of control. Auditing does not fit that. (As I understand it.)

I see your points. Maybe what happened was that I was basically a well intended person, naturally wanting to help people and wanting to make friends at work. I did some drills down at the org and somehow misapplied those drills into actually listening to the people at work, sort of sharing myself with them as you state. Whatever I was doing the people at work trusted me and were willing to spill their guts to me about their personal lives. Maybe it was just a knack I had. I was very sincere and truly wanted to help so maybe they picked up on that aspect of me and not the tech I was learning. I always assumed it was the tech causing them to trust me so much but maybe it was just my native sincerity and desire to help?

This was confirmed a few months later when I was kicked off of tech training and forced to move to Treasury division if I wanted to stay on staff. The top tech guy in the Org thought that I "lacked certainty". Maybe I put helping people before being a Ron bot and that's what he called lacking certainty. To this day, nearly everyone I meet ends up telling me their life story!
Lakey

 

[Panda Termint]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I meant a panda bear!!!

It was a Freudian slip, obviously!

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

i am pretty sure it was meant that way. And I think that 'I don't know' is a good starting point for being on the right track. Almost always when I think I know and am filled with certainty I am nauseous later to learn I was wrong. Hubbard for some reason lacked that corrective trait in himself and so could delude himself in harmful ways, and spread his delusion to others by making it policy. The entire of his system is based on a very solipsistic paranoid view of what communication and the mind are.

Hubbard sure did lack that corrective trait in himself!! A lot of well known people seem to have that trait and it was pretty much deadly for all of them. I'm talking about people such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, et al.

Interesting point you make about Hubbard spreading his delusion to others by making it policy. I can't think of too many in the past who were able to do that to the extent that Hubbard did. Hitler did codify and spread his racial theories to his populace and his allies. Mussolini, Stalin and other destructive leaders did not do this to any large extent.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

i am pretty sure it was meant that way. And I think that 'I don't know' is a good starting point for being on the right track. Almost always when I think I know and am filled with certainty I am nauseous later to learn I was wrong. Hubbard for some reason lacked that corrective trait in himself and so could delude himself in harmful ways, and spread his delusion to others by making it policy. The entire of his system is based on a very solipsistic paranoid view of what communication and the mind are.

Before agreeing fully with the post, I just wanted to quality my agreement. Of course, I had you in mind when I stated that one condition necessary for me to fully agree.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

I don't know exactly what the truth of that is but I do know that since ancient times some philosophers have agreed with that idea, such as Plotinus.

Well it's nice to be in good company, I just noticed that flock of birds phenomena on my own. I talked it over with my brother and a couple of friends and we all seemed to agree that the answer had to be that one spirit controlled the whole flock of birds

On the ant colony thing, we had ants on a property we owned in Fullerton when I was married. It was terrible, they were everywhere into everything. I tried putting traps everywhere, all to no avail. After about 10 days of this fiasco, I was in the back yard washing my car and I noticed all the ants coming from several directions and going down underground at a point where two large slabs of concrete driveway intersected right at the entrance to our garage. I went and got ant poison and put tons of it right into that strip right between the two slabs of cement.

The ant problem started to cease immediately. The next day, first thing in the morning, I went back to that site and there were not ants. However, I could feel anger. Some one or some thing was very angry and really pissed. I could just feel the seething anger that I had discovered the ant nest and had flushed it with ant poison.

I felt bad for doing that but it was either them or us, us being me, my ex wife and my son who was just a toddler at the time.

On certain insects such as flies or worse yet cockroaches or certainly these silverfish creatures that come up from the drain of a kitchen sink, I believe, either they have no soul or they are directed by a being who is extremely degraded.

An ant colony or a bee colony is a beautiful creation, extremely well organized and intricate. The individual members seem to operate on a team concept. The existence of a soul seems to be a given. A colony or hive seems to operate on a "strength in numbers" theory. Each individual ant, bee, hornet or wasp is expendable, if one goes down, another immediately takes its place.

To me, an individual ant is like an individual cell in a human or animal body. It is motivated by a soul but one soul runs a large number of them.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Forgot to say that I don't think how much philosophy I know compared to what others know, in the end, gives me an iota of superiority. I really don't feel that way. It may seem that this gives me an edge but I disagree. It's not what I know, the definitions. And it's not that I am right because of things I know. That is not how I think things work and if I thought that I'd be a pompous ass.

You tend to be modest and though that trait makes a person likable, modesty and humility can be carried too far. Sure you don't want to go too far in the other direction and be pompous but a middle of the road path seems to me to be best and basically that is what you do. All, just my opinion.

There is definitely some sort of advantage in knowing more than most others but I would not say that it gives you an edge or makes you right. It could give you an edge if you chose to use it to win arguments but you don't use your knowledge in that way. As far as making you right, you could use it for that as well and once an a while you do invoke some knowledge to make a point but there is nothing wrong with that.

A lot of people make a joke that it's lonely at the top. As funny as that sounds, there is some truth in that assertion. If a person is a professor or some some sort of teacher, the students know that the teacher knows more than them in a certain subject when they enter the classroom or they would not be taking that class. On a chat board, people don't walk in the door, figuratively speaking, assuming that others know more than they do. On a chat board you get all kinds. The mix tends towards those who are a very pompous to some who are mildly pompous and on down from there. Almost all of us think we are pretty hot stuff and are "smarter than the average bear." Egos are in play on a chat board environment!

When someone who really does know more than the average person on the chat board first arrives, some potential problems do exist. I happen to think that you are such a person but that you are handling your situation very well.
Lakey

 

[strativarius]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Well it's nice to be in good company, I just noticed that flock of birds phenomena on my own. I talked it over with my brother and a couple of friends and we all seemed to agree that the answer had to be that one spirit controlled the whole flock of birds

Sorry, but to put it in the nicest possible way, that is absolute bollocks! How these birds exhibit this phenomena is very well researched and documented. If you want to ignore that, well, fair enough, but my response stands.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

You tend to be modest and though that trait makes a person likable, modesty and humility can be carried too far. Sure you don't want to go too far in the other direction and be pompous but a middle of the road path seems to me to be best and basically that is what you do. All, just my opinion.

There is definitely some sort of advantage in knowing more than most others but I would not say that it gives you an edge or makes you right. It could give you an edge if you chose to use it to win arguments but you don't use your knowledge in that way. As far as making you right, you could use it for that as well and once an a while you do invoke some knowledge to make a point but there is nothing wrong with that.

A lot of people make a joke that it's lonely at the top. As funny as that sounds, there is some truth in that assertion. If a person is a professor or some some sort of teacher, the students know that the teacher knows more than them in a certain subject when they enter the classroom or they would not be taking that class. On a chat board, people don't walk in the door, figuratively speaking, assuming that others know more than they do. On a chat board you get all kinds. The mix tends towards those who are a very pompous to some who are mildly pompous and on down from there. Almost all of us think we are pretty hot stuff and are "smarter than the average bear." Egos are in play on a chat board environment!

When someone who really does know more than the average person on the chat board first arrives, some potential problems do exist. I happen to think that you are such a person but that you are handling your situation very well.
Lakey

Maria would probably "handle" the situation (that you imagine she's in) even better if you ceased focusing on her and just let her relax.

It's becoming uncomfortable to watch all this slobbering ...

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Sorry, but to put it in the nicest possible way, that is absolute bollocks! How these birds exhibit this phenomena is very well researched and documented. If you want to ignore that, well, fair enough, but my response stands.

No, I prefer to be corrected and learn something. Why would you think that I would want to ignore learning the truth? Do you have a link to send me to? If not, I'll Google it myself. If it is well researched as you say, I would really like to know the correct answer on how the birds are able to do that. It has always puzzled me.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Maria would probably "handle" the situation (that you imagine she's in) even better if you ceased focusing on her and just let her relax.

It's becoming uncomfortable to watch all this slobbering ...

Thank you, I appreciate your advice, I think you are making a good point so thanks for passing it on.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Sorry, but to put it in the nicest possible way, that is absolute bollocks! How these birds exhibit this phenomena is very well researched and documented. If you want to ignore that, well, fair enough, but my response stands.

I Googled it myself and found an interesting site with a nice video of flocks of birds making their maneuvers. Two points, no research on this was done until 1984 so not everyone knows about this. I did not find the explanation given for the motion to be fully satisfactory. It is plausible but not really proven. Put it this way, if various scientists do not believe in a soul, they need to come up with an explanation to explain this phenomena. They did their analysis and came up with an explanation but I was hoping for something stronger than their theory, much stronger. I've seen flocks change direction virtually instantaneously and en masse.

There didn't seem to be time enough for movements to filter down so rapidly from all the different extremes of the flock. Maybe, the birds have a communication system, "We will all bank left in 3 seconds" but how would they communicate that to each member of the flock while they are flying?

School is still out for me. I am now agnostic on this controversy. Here is the video:

http://earthsky.org/earth/how-do-flocking-birds-move-in-unison

Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Maria would probably "handle" the situation (that you imagine she's in) even better if you ceased focusing on her and just let her relax.

It's becoming uncomfortable to watch all this slobbering ...

I do get a bit self-conscious actually when the light shines on me in a flattering way when others are present who are also trying to speak; it makes me feel I am being rude to them and not including them. I do appreciate a compliment and the praise is fine if that is the purpose of the event. Let's say I had written a book and went to give a talk and everyone congratulated me and told me it was great. That's fun! I have read poetry at readings, and even won poetry slams and I drank it right in and felt great to take the praise. But being in a forum is not the sort of event to congratulate one person or a birthday party or a competition to see who was the winner. Maybe this response is showing me how regimented I am ! That I only want public compliments if its my awards ceremony, an event to celebrate something I did, or a birthday! LOL. I want the venue to be correct. Now how is that for a value I was harboring that I did not know I had ?

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

If you think that 'more falsifiable' means 'more scientific' and therefore 'more reliably true', then this seems like a paradox. It's not really a paradox, though, because falsifiability is just not about being surer of being true — and being more scientific is not about that, either. That's the whole point of Popper's analysis of science as being about falsifiability: falsifiability is what science has instead of certainty. If what you want is epistemological high ground, science is the wrong place.

.

Yes, that is a good point. Certainty or being more sure is not what it's about for science. There is a radical uncertainty, a knowing that I don't know, doubt, that is at the basis of science, which today is purely Cartesian in that sense, that it doubts as a primary method. And that doubt drives it onward to infinity.

I will recount a story that explains how I felt when I tried to answer you. That yes, certainty is not where it is at for science; although my response comes from a different context.

I was at a conference giving a talk on Kant at Kent State a few years ago. Most of the philosophers there were philosophers but of the analytic school. Only a few were of the continental school (including me). To the analytics we seem like romantics, not having the same logic methodologies and exact interests. The overlap is small in both content and method. I listened to some of the talks and they gave amazing explanations of Kant in relation to the sublime and also the moral imperative that Kantians feel should rule us all. Many times I could not ask a question although I wanted to because I lacked their framework, the context they use to describe the elements under examination. Finally for one of them I was able to ask one very basic question but my question was not given much seriousness by the presenter, since he was really asserting a certainty, a trueness concerning the moral imperative, and this certainty seemed to fly in the face of his own method, and appear dogmatic in relation to it. This is why science generally despises religion since it does make unsubstantiated [illegal claims in the opinion of science]. Science = pure doubt. The Truth = pure certainty. They are opposite, right? Since the presenter's topic was one that interests continentals as well, I asked a question. My question was, if the moral imperative (how we ideally comport ourselves and treat others) exists with such certainty and without a doubt [unscientifically then], WHERE does it come from? Or is it merely a desire, an idea? Since you assert it exists without a doubt? This topic entails more modest questions, not the question of a creator but simply a question of Kant's reduced view of man, in which perhaps in a secular world we have a moral law which is what is the source of humanity. But even that question, taken as a certainty, has a difficulty when put in that context of the falsifiable and the scientific rules related to what passes for that. He could not answer me for the reasons you already gave. Perhaps the moral imperative of Kant, like that super-being, unless there were rampant examples, is easier to falsify [And kant even says so which is why he says, as a scientist, he must retreat to that position]. But such a concept is still doubtful, and this worried Kant no end - that this reduced claim would not be falsifiable; and also to/in the analytical philosophical strand of philosophy [which the presenter I asked the question of belongs to] this is a most important issue, falsifiability. All I was doing was to provide a question, re-insert the doubt the analytics claim to uphold, to ask, where is that abstract concept?

After a while I gave my talk on a typically existential topic of Kant's view of the 'experience' of death. In a way this was a tangential topic to his. The continentals were pushed to the near end of the conference except for a few analytic stars placed right at the end to give their talks. My paper was solicited by Kent State as a response to another presenter who had a certain idea about how Kant's sublime works in the question of death. That presenter I was to respond to argued and agreed with Kant that for Kant we can KNOW what death is since we have its concept with certainty. For me this was the same question and problem of the other presenter who could not answer my question and who also expressed certainty. As a respondent I had prepared a paper in which I disagreed on the strength of the mind or of concepts to 'ground' any KNOWING about experience since they themselves [concepts] lead to infinite regress and are groundless. And I concluded that Kant's concept of death was not adequate to an experience of death. But I argued this from a more existential format, not in the logical framework of other presenters.

But all I really said was, given those logic rules of the analytic school as a starting point, we don't know what we are talking about. That was also Plato's point. "I only know that I don't know" was always his methodology. And look at that, here Plato gives an archaic, proto version of Cartesian doubt as a methodology for Science. The 'I know I don't know' IS the method of doubt. And, obviously the opposite of faith and mortal enemy with it, this doubting scientific attitude is very very old. Even to the ancients.