tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post9154930504989483493..comments2024-03-27T11:16:36.951-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Cosmic Area Rug UpdateGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8118764478062107642019-02-23T09:46:32.684-08:002019-02-23T09:46:32.684-08:00I would add the heresy of privileging the abstract...I would add the heresy of privileging the abstract over common sense.tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-6772349511577421402019-02-23T09:39:46.471-08:002019-02-23T09:39:46.471-08:00Is that going in the new book? It should...Good st...Is that going in the new book? It should...Good stuff!tedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07354048695798015131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51753436892519247822019-02-22T13:23:26.977-08:002019-02-22T13:23:26.977-08:00"And one of the first things you will notice ..."And one of the first things you will notice is the materialist / relativist / historicist / socialist / deconstructionist / metaphysical Darwinist / secular humanist leftist emerges as the ultimate intellectual heretic, in that he somehow manages to combine all of the above. That's quite an accomplicement of evil."<br /><br />Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-12703597212245527482019-02-22T13:21:10.840-08:002019-02-22T13:21:10.840-08:00"So anyway, a list of intellectual heresies c..."So anyway, a list of intellectual heresies came to me in a flash. In no particular order, they would include denial of the Absolute, and with it, the promulgation of relativism (moral, intellectual, aesthetic and cultural); equality as the highest political value (which generates chaos, disorder, and injustice); failure to discern the intrinsic relationship between truth and freedom; ignorance of Hayek's "knowledge problem" in economics; ignorance of Gödel's theorems; nominalism (i.e., denial of transcendence and of essences); materialism (i.e., denial of the vertical); humanism (replacing God with man); determinism (denial of free will); and denial of the boundary between man and animal". <br />Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40885302908688462602019-02-21T12:36:46.325-08:002019-02-21T12:36:46.325-08:00There was a video making the rounds a few weeks ag...There was a video making the rounds a few weeks ago, of a conservative trying to have a dialog with a leftist protestor. He was being calm, reasonable, and rational, and she was having a breakdown and crying that facts aren't real, only emotions are real. The frightening thing is how many people - either female or soymale - were agreeing with her. Not sure how that ties in with eyes and ears, but definitely masculine and feminine traits writ large.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Completely unrelated, but we had snow here today. Crazy weather!juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71878437187434363062019-02-21T12:19:09.630-08:002019-02-21T12:19:09.630-08:00An amusing line of hatethought from 2010:
'.....An amusing line of hatethought from 2010:<br /><br />'... the ears are more "feminine," while the eyes are more "masculine" (bearing in mind that the one is always present in the other). <br /><br />'Clearly, men are more visual beings -- think of their fixation on the female form, for example, -- whereas women tend to be more auditory, hence the well-known ability of even gargoylish men to attract women with an appealing line of bullshit. For this reason, men are most often deceived by the beautiful form, while women are most often deceived by the seductive BS. <br /><br />'Note also that "female porn," such as harlequin romances, is primarily verbal, not visual. Also, single women (and feminized men) overwhelmingly vote Democrat, another instance of the tendency of our less evolved sisters to fall for the superficially appealing but vacuous rhetoric of seducers such as a Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards. Truly, leftism is "political porn," just as materialism is a kind of crude "cognitive porn" (and just as porn represents the domain of sexuality wholly exteriorized and materialized).'<br /><br />*****<br /><br />Certainly helps explain the ascent of AOC and the further descent of the left into the abyss. <br />Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8258443009922867882019-02-19T11:20:52.779-08:002019-02-19T11:20:52.779-08:00Einstein would say that physics must begin and end...Einstein would say that physics must begin and end in experienced reality. We begin with the ponderable world, from which we use induction to come up with abstract principles and axioms. In between are models and hypotheses that may be confirmed or disproved. One can hardly deploy abstractions to prove that the abstracter isn't real!Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-13401683028916134872019-02-19T07:35:28.050-08:002019-02-19T07:35:28.050-08:00Statements such as this, from Prof. Pageblurb'...Statements such as this, from Prof. Pageblurb's comment to Gagdad's book ref: "Einstein'™s steadfast refusal to accept certain aspects of quantum theory was rooted in his insistence that physics has to be about reality", fascinate me. Was Einstein refusing to accept aspects of Reality™, or refusing to entertain doubts about the possibility that Reality™ might be different from what he imagined it to be? IOW, his way, or the highway?<br /><br />I'm a pretty big fan of Reality™ <i>as it is</i>, rather than with what it could be if only it adhered to how I imagined it <i>should</i> be. I had this discussion again with a budding relativist who tried to say that because we assume that wood is solid, when in fact it's mostly space between atomic particles, we can't really know reality. But the fact is that because we can know reality, we are able to use its rules to discover that what makes wood as solid as it is, is the structure of those atomic particles and the charges that hold them together, and it is the Relativists who are running in fear from our ability to really deal with Reality™ as it actually is. <br /><br />Ditto for Quantum Entanglement. Instantaneous non-local mysteriousness doesn't invalidate the concept of Reality™ in any way, shape or form - it simply means that the process by which I feel a rock whacking into my head, is even more mysterious than we could have ever imagined it to be... but because Reality™ is knowable, and if we put it as it <i>is</i>, before our presumptions of how we think it <i>should</i> be, we can learn ever more about it.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-87131876559191839632019-02-18T20:57:01.322-08:002019-02-18T20:57:01.322-08:00Pentecost, for example. Or the British invasion i...Pentecost, for example. Or the British invasion in 1964.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-281000128152859142019-02-18T20:56:06.302-08:002019-02-18T20:56:06.302-08:00Information fields would explain a LOT -- in many ...Information fields would explain a LOT -- in many types of experience, and in diverse disciplines. <br /><br />Change my mind!Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27230087509863590412019-02-18T19:49:00.518-08:002019-02-18T19:49:00.518-08:00I can't help thinking there's a gag about ...I can't help thinking there's a gag about projection in there somewhere, but maybe that's just the flu talking.<br /><br />Or maybe it's just the one about how a lie travels around the world before the truth gets its bootlaces tied.<br /><br />Interesting, in any case. It might explain not only grace, but those instances where intuition seems to be at work and people may know things before any ordinary message is received. juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-70093909099880761442019-02-18T18:59:57.977-08:002019-02-18T18:59:57.977-08:00Wrong link: here's the book.Wrong link: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374239665/?coliid=I2XHDUNCDJKS0O&colid=1M0Z9KRTC1IB&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it" rel="nofollow">here</a>'s the book.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-22984133591227931372019-02-18T18:58:16.774-08:002019-02-18T18:58:16.774-08:00For example, this guy is a heavy hitter in the fie...For example, <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-say-they-ve-found-an-entirely-new-form-of-neural-communication" rel="nofollow">this guy</a> is a heavy hitter in the field. As a reviewer says, <br /><br />"For years, Einstein taught that the speed of light is a fundamental maximum for the transmission of information; a teaching that now appears to be wrong, in spite of Einstein's endorsement. There is indeed, compelling evidence that information can be transmitted at higher speeds than 'c', with practical demonstrations of essentially instantaneous propagation over paths in excess of several hundred Kilometers demonstrated with relative ease."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25605434927381228422019-02-18T18:51:22.017-08:002019-02-18T18:51:22.017-08:00Sounds like action at a distance in the brain, AKA...Sounds like <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-say-they-ve-found-an-entirely-new-form-of-neural-communication" rel="nofollow">action at a distance in the brain</a>, AKA nonlocality. I would think that grace works the same way, i.e., as a field.<br /><br />I've been reading a couple books on quantum physics, so the subject was already in my brain...Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-55928475899239401142019-02-18T10:37:37.811-08:002019-02-18T10:37:37.811-08:00aninnymouse said "The intelligent and the inn...aninnymouse said "The intelligent and the innocent used to do something about it. Today their emotions rely on blaming the other stupid surprised guy, while they cling to their own."<br /><br />Do you own a mirror? Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-24418658089053123672019-02-17T13:48:36.594-08:002019-02-17T13:48:36.594-08:00Anonymous, the intelligent and the innocent have t...Anonymous, the intelligent and the innocent have the same recourse to act that anyone has: faith, prayer, <i>caritas</i>, and hope in the promises of Christ. Putting your trust in anything and anyone else is bound to lead to disappointment. <br /><br />If the world vexes you, pray for it to be conformed to the Lord's will, and in your daily life try to live as He would have you live. It's all any of us can do, and more than enough for most people to focus on. juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-41871066525325457722019-02-17T13:40:02.135-08:002019-02-17T13:40:02.135-08:00I'm reminded of the lovely video Vanderleun po...I'm reminded of the lovely video Vanderleun posted recently showing the development of a salamander from single cell to tadpole stage, when it bursts through the fragile membrane that sustained it and enters into the next stage of its life. <br /><br />Who, seeing the mystical transformation in action, can come away from it believing it could be merely accident? Funny, even as it reveals a secret never witnessed before the advent of modern science, it only renders the subject even <i>more</i>, not less, mysterious than before. And at the same time it tells the story of the cosmos: First, a single, complete, perfect, and undifferentiated whole, which is nevertheless perfectly incomplete. It is only through the process of diminishing, multiplying, differentiating and interacting that it becomes <i>something</i>. If we could go back and within every aspect of the "mechanics" behind the miracle of life, we would still never be able to properly understand what moves the cell to become a creature.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-23930117559249729632019-02-17T13:23:18.908-08:002019-02-17T13:23:18.908-08:00"Howe goes on to say that the belief that nat..."Howe goes on to say that the belief that nature revealed the divine power and wisdom 'constituted one of the principal motivations for scientific activity in the early republic, along with national pride, the hope for useful applications, and the joy of science itself.... The perceived harmony between religion and science worked to their mutual advantage with the public.'"Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-43735047840329209742019-02-17T13:21:32.337-08:002019-02-17T13:21:32.337-08:00Random passage from an old post:
I just recently ...Random passage from an old post:<br /><br />I just recently read <i>What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848</i>, and there is an instructive passage about the American intellectual consensus of the early 19th century, at the very time we began our ass-kicking world-historical ascent (and bear in mind that this is a secular scholar with no religious agenda whatsoever): <br /><br />"As this chapter is written in the early twenty-first century, the hypothesis that the universe reflects intelligent design has provoked a bitter debate in the United States. How very different was the intellectual world of the early nineteenth century! Then, virtually everyone believed in intelligent design. Faith in the rational design of the universe underlay the worldview of the Enlightenment, shared by Isaac Newton, John Locke, and the American Founding Fathers....<br /><br />"The commonly used expression 'the book of nature' referred to the universal practice of viewing nature as a revelation of God's power and wisdom. Christians were fond of saying that they accepted two divine revelations: the Bible and the book of nature." (Raccoons, of course, accept three, including the mirrorcle of the human subject.)Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-50767348181288213312019-02-17T13:19:09.240-08:002019-02-17T13:19:09.240-08:00The intelligent and the innocent used to do someth...The intelligent and the innocent used to do something about it. Today their emotions rely on blaming the other stupid surprised guy, while they cling to their own.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-39248542966007069362019-02-16T09:29:12.184-08:002019-02-16T09:29:12.184-08:00"The stupid are surprised by stupidity and th..."The stupid are surprised by stupidity and the corrupt by corruption. The intelligent and the innocent are less easily disconcerted."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-86800278993574638992019-02-15T23:15:31.400-08:002019-02-15T23:15:31.400-08:00Wisdom this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...Wisdom this:<br /><br />https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kleptocracy-came-to-america/580471/<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-37221848892972623202019-02-12T13:15:25.471-08:002019-02-12T13:15:25.471-08:00Ted has a post up today that is relevant here.
Q...<a href="https://twistingthetailofthecosmos.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-making-of-silent-partner.html" rel="nofollow">Ted has a post up today</a> that is relevant here. <br /><br />Quoting Ted,<br /><br />"Where there was once a beautiful continuity and progress of all orders, e.g. between metaphysics, reason, revelation, theology, cosmology, etc, all now got reduced down to biological continuity. And if there was a God, He now got reduced from an object of knowledge to an object of experience (where there were no principles to render those experiences intelligible)."juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-60510598902379965192019-02-12T12:42:50.620-08:002019-02-12T12:42:50.620-08:00"It's just too bad for the Confederacy th..."It's just too bad for the Confederacy that they were too occupied with the Civil War to know what was going on across the Atlantic with science, but if Darwin's magnum opiate for the scientistic masses had only come out a decade or so earlier (it was published in 1859), they would have had the perfect rejoinder to Lincoln's nonsense about natural rights and the dignity of man. There would have been no need for that silly war. Instead, we would now have the north living under the principles of the Founders, and the south living under the principles of Darwin."Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-35236393277964049592019-02-12T12:38:32.180-08:002019-02-12T12:38:32.180-08:00But one inevitable problem among the irreligious i...But one inevitable problem among the irreligious is that in rejecting religion, they detach themselves from the accumulated wisdom of so many generations. Wisdom, unlike scientific knowledge, is not subject to change, since it is very likely that the proposed change has already been tried and found wanting. <br /><br />After all, this is how wisdom is won in the first place: through painful experience... Which in turn is why, no matter how much you warn them, each generation of young adolts with skulls full of mush will be attracted to leftism. For many it will be a mere flirtation, while for others it becomes a developmental arrest -- just a lifelong adolescent rebellion against reality and common sense.<br /><br />America's founders were not just intelligent, but wise. Thankfully, they didn't just possess "scientific" knowledge, but had genuine insight into human nature. There is no contemporary psychology class they could have taken to acquire such wisdom....<br /><br />The idea that truth was contingent or time-bound would have been rejected out of hand by the Founders. Nevertheless, "job one" of the left is to subvert truth in order to ultimately replace it with power (for it is either one or the other). As Watson explains, the Founders "had a principled understanding of natural rights, which were not to be culturally determined or time-bound or subject to infinite incremental growth, but applicable to all men everywhere and final." <br /><br />.... for the Founders, <i>no further evolution is possible</i>, the reason being that in arriving at his own freedom, man has arrived at an absolute. What you do with it is up to you....<br /><br />Just try asking a Darwinist why slavery is wrong, with recourse only to Darwinian principles. Does this mean that Darwinists are pro-slavery? Hardly. It just means that they have no universal and timelessly true argument against it -- just as they have no argument against infanticide, or government theft, or racial quotas, or death panels, or euthanasia, or the designated hitter, or anything else that is plainly <i>wrong</i>. <br />Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00911613613759942690noreply@blogger.com