tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post1965647490276287269..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: The Piper's Calling You to Join Him On the Stairway to HelpGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-79399920387439008382009-07-10T20:52:48.037-07:002009-07-10T20:52:48.037-07:00You mention here a "gulf" that is "...You mention here a "gulf" that is "virtually infinite" between Man, on the one hand, and the animate and inanimate cosmos on the other. <br /><br />Albert Einstein also noticed this gulf and described it as "logically unbridgeable". He said, "We have the habit of combining certain concepts and conceptual relations (propositions) so definitely with certain sense experiences that we do not become conscious of the gulf—logically unbridgeable—which separates the world of sensory experiences from the world of concepts and propositions..." <br /><br />He said this while <a href="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/einstein_russell.htm" rel="nofollow">remarking on Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge</a>.<br /><br />What we are all about here, is the very essence of being what "I am". What we are. Who we are.<br /><br />And that in itself is a key to our "identity" - that we can be described not only as a "what" but also as a "who".<br /><br />Who are we, and who is our father? What absolute and atomic manifestation of "I Am"-ishness are we patterned after? Is the primary reality "purely material"? Or is it not only a "what" but a "who" as well?<br /><br />Indeed, it was written "In him we live and move and have our being" and "we are his children" by the old, mystical Greeks. <br /><br />And through it all: Words. We speak, we listen, we propose, we theorize... we even listen to people who tell us that the self is an "illusion" of the material... who never are considering "who" it is that "they" are trying to convince of such a thought.<br /><br />We did not create ourselves. We did not somehow arrive here on our own. We were put here, and that not of our own will. <br /><br />We "were not"... And now, "we are". Welcome to today. Are we ready for tomorrow? It is coming as surely as this day did - and we will all be there to see it.<br /><br />In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. <br />(Joh 1:1-5)Endurionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10004051033256175828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-57675829521527678562009-07-10T07:47:09.800-07:002009-07-10T07:47:09.800-07:00That's what the beginning means when it says, ...That's what the beginning means when it says, "And the Earth was <em>formless</em> and void."Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-85323498479308771342009-07-10T06:09:14.606-07:002009-07-10T06:09:14.606-07:00Thanks Bob!
Yet another (re)post that is far bett...Thanks Bob!<br /><br />Yet another (re)post that is far better than the whispering winds (or is that Skully's farts?). <br />Wait, that didn't come out right...USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-56686051165014149842009-07-10T05:22:20.033-07:002009-07-10T05:22:20.033-07:00Van-
And everyone thought Skynet was gonna be run...Van-<br /><br />And everyone thought Skynet was gonna be run by the machines.Skullynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26448488950502406772009-07-09T22:03:01.710-07:002009-07-09T22:03:01.710-07:00Oh, wait! we had it ALL wrong... looks like the A....Oh, wait! we had it ALL wrong... looks like the A.I. people are right after all! Look, here's proof <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/robotsmile/" rel="nofollow">Robot Teaches Itself to Smile</a>, it sorta squishes its latex up to look like real smilling, and even angry, sad and surprised... so it must be <i>smiiilling</i> (someone cue Satchmo).<br /><br />" <i>The group says its studious robot may even improve our understanding of how infants and children learn to make facial expressions.<br /><br />“The idea is to try to understand some of the computational principles behind learning,” Bartlett said. “Here the computational principle is reinforcement learning and active exploration, which may also be behind learning motor movements in an infant.</i>”<br /><br />The next step is to get the Einstein robot to start socializing. Once the robot can mimic facial expressions in a social context, the researchers plan to use him in an “automatic tutoring” experiment."<br /><br />(Is it safe to allow that kind of stupid out on the streets? Yeah, no. Lock the doors, they're out there.)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-41480524993955080132009-07-09T21:39:34.918-07:002009-07-09T21:39:34.918-07:00HA! I finally had a chance to listen to the "...HA! I finally had a chance to listen to the "Beatnix" Beatleize 'Stairway to Heaven'... I don't think I've ever enjoyed that song so much!<br /><br />;-)<br /><br />wv:mishun<br />From GahdVan Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51149519179769895132009-07-09T21:30:55.396-07:002009-07-09T21:30:55.396-07:00The ignoble pissant just makes you so proud, doesn...The <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090709/ids_photos_wl/r3356552547.jpg" rel="nofollow">ignoble pissant</a> just makes you so proud, doesn't he?<br /><br />What Jacques said.NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-28494346119109148412009-07-09T17:21:12.908-07:002009-07-09T17:21:12.908-07:00"Prior to the emergence of life, there weren’..."Prior to the emergence of life, there weren’t any qualities either, since every quality is in relation to a subject. As I noted in the Wholly Coonifesto, the cosmos obviously didn’t “look” like anything, since vision is a property of eyes. Physicists say it was very hot, but not really. Only in relationship to the cool and ironic physicists of the present day."<br /><br />Absolutely. And strange as it might seem, in considering that, you are ineveateappleably to the realization that,<br /><br />"The point is that, with the sudden emergence of life, the cosmos now had the makings of an inside, an entirely novel ontological category that cannot be accounted for by physics. Science can account for a lot of things, but one thing for which it can never account is the shocking presence of an inside, of a cosmic withinness, of an interior presence in the midst of what had only been an “exterior” up to the emergence of life."<br /><br />Which again, is what our A.I. ninnies miss... the task they face isn't to create artificial intelligence, it is to create artificial space <i>within</i> the without... and artificial space doesn't leave much room for a storefront... those stores <i>aren't even</i> closed.<br /><br />wv:quandu<br />airyVan Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-64890388402513516782009-07-09T17:13:29.083-07:002009-07-09T17:13:29.083-07:00So that's what my bandmates were doing, listen...So <i>that's</i> what my bandmates were doing, listening to Zep and staring at the walls.<br /><br />blink.<br /><br /><i>Nahhh</i>... they were stoned, that much was sophevident.<br /><br />;-)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-61867957887605805552009-07-09T12:49:55.953-07:002009-07-09T12:49:55.953-07:00"Science can account for a lot of things, but..."Science can account for a lot of things, but one thing for which it can never account is the shocking presence of an inside, of a cosmic withinness, of an interior presence in the midst of what had only been an “exterior” up to the emergence of life."<br /><br />Been reading "The Cell's Design" by Fazale Rana, a ID tract about the amazing level of complexity found in the living cell; the author is a biochemist and explains life process after process, which by itself leaves me admiring the faith of those who actually believe that this whole show is the result of random mutation and natural selection. The cumulative weight of the evidence is convincing, at least to those who are willing to look at the evidence. <br />The author does detract somewhat (I think) from this effect by interjecting every few pages, "See, that proves there has to be a designer." The work is a convincing demonstration of the absurdity of Darwinian hunca munca claiming to be a complete explanation of life with no help needed from Upstairs.<br />Maybe the point that has been hovering in the background and brought to the fore by this post is that Darwinism, and in fact biology, has no 'splanation, Lucy, for the origin of life; Darwinism requires that life already be there but has nothing to say about how it got there; biology is all description and just throws away the question of 'why life.' (Rupert Sheldrake once said that the first step in studying life was to kill it.)<br />Your post is definitely not a muddle; it touches pretty nicely on those two golden oldies, astonishing blasts from the past: the emergence of life and the emergence of consciousness, Jacob's ladder.bob f.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-15734572147000500602009-07-09T10:52:19.066-07:002009-07-09T10:52:19.066-07:00Awesome.
I've always been partial to Stairway...Awesome.<br /><br />I've always been partial to<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTCYLbFxTpI" rel="nofollow"> Stairway to Gilligan's Island, </a>myself.SippicanCottagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14940797380578921776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-81039232998343483962009-07-09T10:30:03.337-07:002009-07-09T10:30:03.337-07:00Great re-post riff Bob
Speaking of intelligence i...Great re-post riff Bob<br /><br />Speaking of intelligence in animals.<br />Wish I could do the linky-thing bec. on youtube there is a 8-ish min. long videoclip on elephant painting a self-portrait which I find fascinating.<br />If interested type in the search window "original elephant painitng self-portrait"<br /><br />TheofiliaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com