tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post1415736648844665566..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Pissing in the Stream of ProgressGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-82429862318767230702012-02-26T10:41:56.349-08:002012-02-26T10:41:56.349-08:00Van,
Post bonus guest post. Thank you.
Interes...Van, <br /><br />Post bonus guest post. Thank you.<br /><br />Interesting also would be a diagnosis of those who accept "special revelation" but are cynical toward "general revelation" in one way or another. How do they get that way? I know people who sort of wallow in general revelation never wanting to put a name to anything and not accepting the nature of the Word as given. But then there are people who accept the given Word, but do all kind of maneuvers toward general revelation, being cynical toward that.Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16900344453710081874noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-76882470637519008072012-02-26T09:42:03.556-08:002012-02-26T09:42:03.556-08:00"Remember a couple of posts ago, our discussi..."Remember a couple of posts ago, our discussion of how applied cynicism is the cure for a corrosive cynicism gone wild?"<br /><br />It's the difference between Questioning and Doubting.<br /><br />"Note that both the cause and effect of cynicism is the absence of truth..."<br /><br />It's not just the absense of Truth, it's the absense of it even being sought, or rather its absense is what is being sought. The person who uses Doubt as their method, the Sophist, the Cynic, is not seeking to disentangle or to discover, but to unravel and disintegrate, the entire purpose of their method is the pursuit of nothingness... everything is approached with the sense of "Nuh-uh... that isn't really so, that isn't really there, look, I'll disintegrate it with my Doubt - you see? Not real."<br /><br />Socrates on the other hand wasn't interested in unravelling, but disentangling, revealing and integrating, and that is what comes to us as the Socratic Method, questioning in order to discover and understand - seeking to create knowledge of what is true.<br /><br />The Sophistic Cynic seeks only to dissolve and dispense with - nominally he seeks to show what is False, but fundamentally he seeks to destroy and to make nothing of what was.<br /><br />""[T]he most characteristic feature of all alike was that they sought the advantages conferred by knowledge without seeking truth.”<br /><br />And as always, when Truth is not the object, Power is, power to control, power to rend, and ultimately, though they always seem a bit surprised, power to destroy themselves and all they built - the power luster is self destructive to the core, because at the core that is what they seek - de-struction.<br /><br />It is the scaffolding with which Hell is 'constructed', the power to build nihil.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-19228901234932082122012-02-26T06:33:43.387-08:002012-02-26T06:33:43.387-08:00Everything happens [in razor-thin pure vertical] N...Everything happens [in razor-thin pure vertical] Now anyway... Now only...Now always<br />+<br />What is, IS<br />+<br />ONLY being<br /><br />"cheerful news was sadly rare"gehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02015936407999495181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-90802648331092896062012-02-25T21:07:17.706-08:002012-02-25T21:07:17.706-08:00Although, I've noticed that everything happens...<i>Although, I've noticed that everything happens Now anyway.</i><br /><br />Reminds me of that old saying that time is God's way of keeping everything from happening all at once.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40983530472041847232012-02-25T12:40:50.483-08:002012-02-25T12:40:50.483-08:00You mean the book by his better-half.You mean the book by his better-half.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13720790978632771716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-57552304195091746942012-02-25T12:26:11.638-08:002012-02-25T12:26:11.638-08:00No, I don't really care for him. Or, I like h...No, I don't really care for him. Or, I like half of what he says, but the other half I don't like at all.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89399690965338928862012-02-25T11:43:18.080-08:002012-02-25T11:43:18.080-08:00OT...
Bob,
Have you read, "The Science of the...OT...<br />Bob,<br />Have you read, "The Science of the Greater Jihad: Essays in Principial Psychology" by Charles Upton?Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13720790978632771716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25881313732994941122012-02-25T10:41:30.045-08:002012-02-25T10:41:30.045-08:00"[T]he most characteristic feature of all ali..."[T]he most characteristic feature of all alike was that they sought the advantages conferred by knowledge without seeking truth.”<br /><br />The scaffolding of Hell.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-3030431900569636362012-02-25T07:41:19.640-08:002012-02-25T07:41:19.640-08:00"Science can't measure the Planck epoch, ..."Science can't measure the Planck epoch, much less what/where it came from. But one thing is certain: whatever the Planck epoch was like, it must have had a cause sufficient to produce it."<br /><br />Stephen Hawking goes with "negative time", I think.<br /><br />So one way to get around it is to use negative numbers.<br /><br />Although at this point, cosmology is trying to lock down the dark matter and dark energy problem.<br /><br />So, the entire model could get thrown out in the future.<br /><br />Although, I've noticed that everything happens Now anyway.JPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11126071014909954387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-50402812573638037552012-02-24T20:52:48.249-08:002012-02-24T20:52:48.249-08:00Verdiales said...
"There is no getting aroun...Verdiales said...<br /><br />"There is no getting around the absurdity of asserting that existence came out of nonexistence. There must be pure existence, which is not itself finite, and which is itself sufficient to cause (by symmetry disturbance or whatever) everything subsequent."<br /><br />That's it, right there. <br /><br />[If that statement was a rare animal and I was hiking in a jungle with a photographer, I would freeze in my tracks, nod slightly, and not even breathe... especially up to the part that crescendos at "pure existence". For proof of God, to me, that would be the QED.]Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16900344453710081874noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-31756185113308523172012-02-24T11:45:08.673-08:002012-02-24T11:45:08.673-08:00Er, a reasonable person can't be satisfied by ...Er, a reasonable person can't be satisfied by that answer because the *question* is perfectly logical.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8545277125134258042012-02-24T11:44:16.442-08:002012-02-24T11:44:16.442-08:00Planck epoch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck...Planck epoch:<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_epoch<br /><br />Right, so, whence the Planck epoch? <br /><br />Science can't measure the Planck epoch, much less what/where it came from. But one thing is certain: whatever the Planck epoch was like, it must have had a cause sufficient to produce it.<br /><br />The materialist answers, so what. You can't study something you can't study, so why bother? The answer is that a reasonable person can't be satisfied by that answer because it is perfectly logical.<br /><br />There is no getting around the absurdity of asserting that existence came out of nonexistence. There must be pure existence, which is not itself finite, and which is itself sufficient to cause (by symmetry disturbance or whatever) everything subsequent.<br /><br />This is anterior to any ground state, vacuum energy, etc.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-52917960768000753542012-02-24T09:20:45.955-08:002012-02-24T09:20:45.955-08:00(nothing to see here, just checking the box...)(nothing to see here, just checking the box...)juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-43695330779033882772012-02-24T09:18:17.443-08:002012-02-24T09:18:17.443-08:00I'm reminded of a post Vanderleun had up a cou...I'm reminded of a post Vanderleun had up a couple weeks ago about algae blooms. Also of something glimpsed more recently about the big bang. Apparently, some scientists believe they're on the verge of explaining how something came from almost nothing. If they manage it, they seem to think they will have explained <i>why</i> it all happened, though of course they will have done nothing of the sort.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-91992325999812742572012-02-24T08:59:54.010-08:002012-02-24T08:59:54.010-08:00"Academia is not a mirror to hold up to socie..."Academia is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."<br /><br />That's the philosophy of the tenured Left in a nutshell. They all envy Michel Foucault and Edward Said, who threw bricks at things.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00987042455512485699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-3237556119959957562012-02-24T08:45:50.485-08:002012-02-24T08:45:50.485-08:00In reading the description of Sophists, I am unsur...In reading the description of Sophists, I am unsure whether to laugh or cry. In any case, alternating current can be illuminating. <br /><br />A couple of days ago I read part of a piece by some physicist who does not like the multiverse and string theory approach. His very sensible argument was that just because you can get the mathematics to work out does not mean the equations represent reality. I think he used the phrase that it was more about excuses than explanations. <br /><br />We have exactly that "walking encyclopedia" thing going in so many fields, from cosmology to climate science. Economists and politicians are really good at coming up with excuses and assigning blame after the fact. They are not so good at predicting the often dire consequences beforehand.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-82678040605548784252012-02-24T08:24:29.208-08:002012-02-24T08:24:29.208-08:00Yes, the hand, because it is nature's first al...<i>Yes, the hand, because it is nature's first all-purpose tool.</i><br /><br />The Swiss Army Knife of appendages, not to mention metaphors.mushroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07651027035577798096noreply@blogger.com