We are Lost in Thought

[Bebe Le Strange]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

I am on the same line with you....But .... how to tell your child....

Lawls, lots of consistent repetition! Trust me I know...!

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

Lawls, lots of consistent repetition! Trust me I know...!

or send them to university ?? I mean what strikes me as interesting is that just because some scientists who have studied and given their fair share in intellectual values criticise science (which of course is to criticise - that is what makes it NON_DOGMATIC per se) make Lauren entitled to make statements of science that are not funded on knowledge. Its something different to make a profound criticism based on knowledge (hell, i am a psychologist and criticise psychology) than to criticise things i do not have a clue of and are unable to present facts to proof.

That reminds me of women who do not have a high education but think they are smart because they bang attorneys and get business via their sexual transactions while others have to get a real MA (not just a BA) . If said people were REALLY that smart they would rather got for the MA and not for the BJ... ;-))..

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

Lawls, lots of consistent repetition! Trust me I know...!

sounds almost like religious mantra...maybe it does the trick :-)??

[Vikki Simone]

Wow, I've always enjoyed reading your thought's but this thread has cemented it.... I am intellectually taken by you Nina .

'Tis all...... a few of you guys have sufficiently touched on my take in this matter, and my $0.02 would turn into a dissertation.

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by Vikki Simone

Wow, I've always enjoyed reading your thought's but this thread has cemented it.... I am intellectually taken by you Nina .

'Tis all...... a few of you guys have sufficiently touched on my take in this matter, and my $0.02 would turn into a dissertation.

thank you very much. i feel flattered . ....and i love to impress beautiful ladies :-)

[John Bull]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

thank you very much. i feel flattered . ....and i love to impress beautiful ladies :-)

But make sure you do it in a civil way and with respect.

[NinaBrooke]

Originally Posted by John Bull

But make sure you do it in a civil way and with respect.

I am sorry John, but if someone posts something completely ignorant and respectless how come i am the one that gets criticised for doing stuff not in a civil way? I don`t have the arrogance to pretend i know what happens in a 1000 years? And i state facts? Not just believes and hear say? When someone shouts in the woods he has to be able to handle the echo. I am civil when people are not arrogant and ignorant. sorry.

Some people are even arrogant enough to not be able to admit when they are wrong. That is something i `d never do. And i consider that rude, ignorant and not civil. When i am wrong then i am plain and simply wrong. And for me its also considered rude and respectless to not have the sense to admit that someone is wrong. I think that is something that is valued in a discussion as well. I usually don`t say things about topics where i have not enough knowledge and pretend i know it all. There are plenty of topics out there i simply don`t know enough either. But i am not arrogant enough to pretend i do and then not admitting when i am wrong.

[Naomi4u]

When others are disrespectful they are not "called out". I think most of us know who I am talking about. I like Nina. Do I agree with everything she posts? No but that's what this board is all about. We won't always agree. We all come from different backgrounds and have our own unique views on life. I even enjoy reading Charlestudor's post when he's not being a *****. I find him very intelligent at times . Like myself, Nina is not from here so sometimes she may across a bit "harsh" but I'm sure she means well. English is not her first language so she says things a little different. Personally, I like her posts and I'm looking forward to reading more from her and others.

Carry on...

[Naomi4u]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

That reminds me of women who do not have a high education but think they are smart because they bang attorneys and get business via their sexual transactions while others have to get a real MA (not just a BA) . If said people were REALLY that smart they would rather got for the MA and not for the BJ... ;-))..

LOL!!

[Camille]

Originally Posted by Lauren Summerhill

I'm not saying that science has brought nothing of value. I'm saying in a 1000 years penicillin may very well be considered a primitive form of medication, while the works of Plato are still being contemplated.

Lauren...apples and oranges.
Trying to compare Plato with Penicillin is just...well, it makes no sense lol.
I agree that much more complex drugs will be sourced and created over time...hell just look as the billions that are spent on orphan drugs that only 25K of the population require...but are required to save the life of a patient. People may well look back and say, "Hell, in the grand scheme of things today Penicillin was a rather simple drug to make wasn't it?"...but I doubt anyone will ever consider it a primitive form of medicine. How could they when it has saved millions of lives all around the world? If you asked the general population to choose between Plato and Penicillin (which would confuse them anyway lol) I'll go with the latter being seen as more beneficial to mankind. Penicillin was a break through drug and no matter how many steps we take from there in science towards more complex and innovative drugs, Pencilin won't ever find itself undervalued. It just won't. It changed the world we lived in..radically.

C

[Camille]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

ps: and just because you banged some scientists who told you of some dangers within scientific references does not make you entitled to post - excuse me - twisted facts.

Naomi, come on. Posting stuff such as the above is not due to a language barrier. That's absurd lol.

I find it quite offensive that Nina thinks a masters is required to have any kind of an opinion that holds.
The original founder of Genzyme has no masters degree. Should we go out and shoot him for daring to create a successful biotech (and several others) because of that?
I generally find that those folks that are well read of their own volition (rather than under duress from college) have cogent thoughts on subject matter. Their opinions are worth no less than mine because I have a masters. In fact, I'll go as far as to say I despise people who wave their degrees in the air as though that somehow gives their opinion an air of superiority. So you went to school...big deal. Show me what you can do with it out of school and then we'll talk. Lauren is one of the most well read women I have ever had the opportunity to meet. I don't share her love for much of the material she reads, but I do respect her voracious appetite for reading all manner of books. In fact, I'd pay to see her library lol.

C

[Roark]

Originally Posted by Bebe Le Strange

I love reading Sam Harris's writings. I found this article he wrote to be very interesting and thought provoking. I thought I would share here for the intellectual reader's interest!

We are Lost in Thought
I invite you to pay attention to anything — the sight of this text, the sensation of breathing, the feeling of your body resting against your chair — for a mere sixty seconds without getting distracted by discursive thought. It sounds simple enough: Just pay attention. The truth, however, is that you will find the task impossible. If the lives of your children depended on it, you could not focus on anything — even the feeling of a knife at your throat — for more than a few seconds, before your awareness would be submerged again by the flow of thought. This forced plunge into unreality is a problem. In fact, it is the problem from which every other problem in human life appears to be made.
I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. Linguistic thought is indispensable to us. It is the basis for planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other capacities that make us human. Thinking is the substance of every social relationship and cultural institution we have. It is also the foundation of science. But our habitual identification with the flow of thought — that is, our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as transient appearances in consciousness — is a primary source of human suffering and confusion.
Our relationship to our own thinking is strange to the point of paradox, in fact. When we see a person walking down the street talking to himself, we generally assume that he is mentally ill. But we all talk to ourselves continuously — we just have the good sense to keep our mouths shut. Our lives in the present can scarcely be glimpsed through the veil of our discursivity: We tell ourselves what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, and what might yet happen. We ceaselessly reiterate our hopes and fears about the future. Rather than simply exist as ourselves, we seem to presume a relationship with ourselves. It's as though we are having a conversation with an imaginary friend possessed of infinite patience. Who are we talking to?
While most of us go through life feeling that we are the thinker of our thoughts and the experiencer of our experience, from the perspective of science we know that this is a distorted view. There is no discrete self or ego lurking like a minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. There is no region of cortex or pathway of neural processing that occupies a privileged position with respect to our personhood. There is no unchanging "center of narrative gravity" (to use Daniel Dennett's phrase). In subjective terms, however, there seems to be one — to most of us, most of the time.
Our contemplative traditions (Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) also suggest, to varying degrees and with greater or lesser precision, that we live in the grip of a cognitive illusion. But the alternative to our captivity is almost always viewed through the lens of religious dogma. A Christian will recite the Lord's Prayer continuously over a weekend, experience a profound sense of clarity and peace, and judge this mental state to be fully corroborative of the doctrine of Christianity; A Hindu will spend an evening singing devotional songs to Krishna, feel suddenly free of his conventional sense of self, and conclude that his chosen deity has showered him with grace; a Sufi will spend hours whirling in circles, pierce the veil of thought for a time, and believe that he has established a direct connection to Allah.
The universality of these phenomena refutes the sectarian claims of any one religion. And, given that contemplatives generally present their experiences of self-transcendence as inseparable from their associated theology, mythology, and metaphysics, it is no surprise that scientists and nonbelievers tend to view their reports as the product of disordered minds, or as exaggerated accounts of far more common mental states — like scientific awe, aesthetic enjoyment, artistic inspiration, etc.
Our religions are clearly false, even if certain classically religious experiences are worth having. If we want to actually understand the mind, and overcome some of the most dangerous and enduring sources of conflict in our world, we must begin thinking about the full spectrum of human experience in the context of science.
But we must first realize that we are lost in thought.


SAM HARRIS
Neuroscientist; Chairman, Project Reason; Author, The Moral Landscape

While the debate of the encyclical(s) and its role as a template for spirituality will rage for many generations to come. The advancement of humanity vis a vis the thought process as misguided as it may be, must always proceed in the context of science.

[Naomi4u]

Originally Posted by ninasastri

ps: and just because you banged some scientists who told you of some dangers within scientific references does not make you entitled to post - excuse me - twisted facts.

Originally Posted by Camille

Naomi, come on. Posting stuff such as the above is not due to a language barrier. That's absurd lol.

C

No comment.

[Guest053011]

Originally Posted by Camille

I'll go with the latter being seen as more beneficial to mankind. Penicillin was a break through drug and no matter how many steps we take from there in science towards more complex and innovative drugs, Pencilin won't ever find itself undervalued. It just won't. It changed the world we lived in..radically.

In historical context it will always be looked on as an amazing turning point in the human journey. However, I do believe that in the year 3000 it could very possibly be irrelevant in the medical community.

I agree that it's apples and oranges - you can't eliminate either one, they both serve a very important and very different function and removing one cripples us. But this thread does compare the relevance of each and the article claims all contemplative thought outside the bounds of science is false, that reason can only be achieved through science.

My opinion on the matter is wholistic not exclusionary. The comparison is already made in the thread.

Questions of what it means to be human what reaponsiilitu that puts on our shoulders, trying to define truth, existence, and justice, and questions about God will always persist.

Interestingly, cognitive scientists are suggesting that a belief in God is in fact part of the way our brain is structured, the very mechanisms put into place that make us so curious, also make the brain *desire* a belief in God. In reading these articles I can't help but wonder, if this is true, how is it people can move away from such a belief while others are trapped in a world of superstition. Such is the curious world we live in.

[Camille]

Originally Posted by Lauren Summerhill

In historical context it will always be looked on as an amazing turning point in the human journey. However, I do believe that in the year 3000 it could very possibly be irrelevant in the medical community.

We shall agree to disagree

C x