This time, ami has a point....

[Xelebes]

Genetic Memory should not be confused with Memory. Genetic Memory is the pattern of growth from unicellar (egg) to multicellular (adult) that predisposes it to certain behaviours. A bird learns to walk on two feet if only because it can't reliably walk on all fours (the wings are ungainly for terrestrial locomotion.)

 

[lustatopia]

...whoosh...

When Wittgenstein asked how could a proof for the existence of an external reality be made, the English philosopher GE Moore answered:

“How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, ‘Here is one hand’, and adding, ‘and here is another’”

All GE Moore proved was that he has a faith.

The general theme of this thread seems to be about scepticism.

Scepticism is that admirable trait of the rational mind to inquiry into the evidence behind an assertion.

True scepticism isn’t about closing one’s mind to possibility but about opening one’s mind up to examine any possibility. And even after rejecting an assertion as less than useful, the sceptical mind must always be ready to return to that assertion at a moment’s notice should new evidence arise. Otherwise scepticism transmogrifies into Faith.

All Faith began as scepticism.

In our modern world we often find when you scratch a sceptic you find some one operating on the basis of a faith. Some one who is nominally sceptical on suspect topics - religion, art, traditions, and the numinous - but is incapable of shining their bright light of rational inquiry on the foundation, or the background upon which all their rationalism is based.

I’ve freely professed my faith here. My faith is in Scientific Methodology. All else, including the results of scientific inquiry I try to remain sceptical about.

Notice I’m making a big deal about faith. And that’s because at the very bottom of the existential barrel are some really unfortunate paradoxes which means even the foundations of everything we know about science are built upon the flimsiest of evidence which could be falsified by a single new (if surprising) result from research conducted in sub-atomic physics or in the other direction, by looking outward into the cosmos.

In both the field of physics and cosmology new machines and satellites are expanding our ability to gather evidence in realms totally closed to us only yesterday. Everything we know about matter, energy and even the very matrix of reality itself is derived in near total ignorance of what is going on at the two extreme ends of reality, the very small and the very big. We don't know where we are!

But wait, it gets much worse than simple ignorance about the extremes of the universe. We don't even know who we are! We don’t even know for sure there even exists a world beyond our minds. Yes, of course, there seems to be one. We must behave as if there is an external world, but we can’t prove it. Worse, since our minds have no direct contact with the real world we can’t even be sure of the true nature of the real world, even if we assume it exist.

And it gets worse yet! We don't know why we are here. We don’t know if we have free will to act as free agents in an naturally evolving universe or whether everything, every event, was predetermined by the first causes set in motion at the big bang. Thus, it’s impossible to know for sure how to organize our ethical and moral lives. You can’t punish a criminal if the crime was committed because it was destined. Likewise should a murderer be rehabilitated and returned to society if he murdered of his own free will? We don't know what to do.

Science is an admirable tool for manipulating and understanding natural phenomena, it’s given us great technological power and mastery over our domain. OK, because of science We Know how to do things. But it can’t answer any of other the big questions about life. We can only answer these big life question in our own ways with our own faiths and no one can say who is wrong or right, because there is no single objective way of knowing in the world and there never can be.

You wouldn’t hire a shaman to help design an airplane nor would you have an aeronautical engineer teach indigenous tribal kids in New Guinea the ways of their mountain rain forest.

So I am sceptical of people who reflexively express scepticism of the arts, the numinous, and other ways of knowing without acknowledging the serious limitations of the scientific way of knowing as well.

All of us here have our faiths perhaps most especially those among us who rail most heartily against so-called irrational, intuitive, nonlinear and numinous ways of knowledge.

For what else is a faith but the ability to close off one’s mind to alternative evidence?

 

[Xelebes]

You're going to have to have extraordinary evidence to assert that what we have around here is not real. So far, I can't think of what that evidence might look like. The fact that someone is there to assert the claim undoes the assertion.

 

[Stella_Omega]

That reality is meaningless is a meaningless argument, it's boring to me, it's as stupidly mysticawikle as any God belief.

So, if you want to assert that I show a blind faith in the external nature of reality, I'm fine with it.

At least your assertion doesn't impinge on my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, the way Xtian assertions do.

 

[amicus]

Ami said that:

.

I think Stephen also questioned its usage as mystical nonsense.

But in fact it's a modern term used in evolutionary molecular biology. It's use to describe the way the process of natural selection is encoded into the genetic material which ultimately uses this blueprint or "genetic memory" to form a piece of the genotype. As phenotypes we are simply hard copies of our code - genotype - and ultimately the physical manifestation of millions of genetic memories.

For instance, ancient hominids who could form syntax had a reproductive advantage over those who couldn't. An evolutionary biologist might well make the statement, "the ability to use syntax was naturally selected for in ancient hominids and became part of our genetic memory."

It's really has nothing to do with Larmackism or mysticism.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Defined as above, I agree, but I hasten to add, that to extrapolate evolutionary molecular biology to cognition and actual memory, would be a mistake.

I am enjoying your thoughts here and elsewhere, but I sense a journey for you, in search of a 'truth' that will apply on a personal basis, and I wish you success.

I read back through all the erudite and well educated 'name-dropping' that has crept into this thread and marvel at the intelligence of some, but mourn the absence of open thinking and shudder as it is all intended to muddy the waters in terms of applying reason and rationality to human actions. In other words, an absolute moral code that is universal to all humans.

The issue here has nothing to do with Richard P. Feynman or Deepak Chopra, or any other illuminary, the issue here is abortion and homosexuality and individual human freedom, moral issues, ethical issues in a changing world that has morally lost its direction.

Throughout any and all religions you will find, in one form or another, a 'thall shall not kill' imperative/absolute. Modern man, sans God, must discover a means of rationally judging his actions and the actions of others; it is a psychological necessity that the individual 'know' the difference between right and wrong. Without such certainty, the natural function of the mind is impeded and disassociative behavior follows.

In a most clever way, it has been purported that 'science' is process only and that assessment transferred to the mind of man as process, with neither man's mind or the scientific p;rocess created by the mind, being capable to perceive a moral reality that is akin to the physical reality of existence.

Once you see and understand the subterfuge of the usual suspects here and comprehend their evasions, it becomes easier to toy with them.

regards...

ami

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oh ami, for crissake.

Be honest. You really don't give a shit about the sanctity of human life. You give a shit about the sanctity of human life that has spending money.

 

[Verdad]

Earlier, Stephen said extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and it occurs to me that could be the crux of misunderstanding.

The talk kept turning to things such as the experiences of Buddhist monks, who are extraordinary at least in the same sense as top sportsmen are extraordinary—they have years of training in a practical discipline. Worse, it kept turning to ‘fringe phenomena’, and I don’t even know what to say about that. If skepticism obliges me to make some “who knows” motions, in truth I just don’t spend much time considering spoon bending. It’s therefore unclear to me why we even go there.

It’s as though any talk of ‘mystery’ or ‘numinous’ translates for some folks into something like “expect to see reality as you know it wantonly violated.” That’s not what anyone suggested, though, nor does anyone here strike me as holding their breath. As far as that kind of extraordinary goes, we’re entirely right to say “let them repeat it in the lab, then we can discuss it.” Factual claims demand factual proof, extraordinary or otherwise.

No one was asked to accept any new facts, though, but merely to consider the same old in a way that recognizes the mystery therein. Admittedly, that too could be a trick: I could, for example, point out all sorts of perfectly mundane facts but insist that taken all together they point to existence of a creator. However, I’m not doing that either.

Recognizing such things as the limits of science, the shaky foundations of our knowledge, the conundrums of human condition, and so on, doesn’t lead to a creator, or to abdication of rationality. It does do all sorts of other cool things, though, like sharpening of critical skills, recognition of numinous which does not depend on metaphysical, better appreciation of social conflicts, etc. I’m really not sure why it causes such irritation.

 

[lustatopia]

So, if you want to assert that I show a blind faith in the external nature of reality, I'm fine with it.

Great. Stella. No argument there. I have faith that an external reality exists too. I'm just trying not to let my faith blind me.

No one said that reality is meaningless, far from it.

Nor did anyone deny reality exists. In fact on can easily prove reality exists, it the location of that reality that's the bugger.

What I said is that no external reality can be proven beyond any doubt to exist. Of course, that is a totally counter intuitive statement. Still it's true statement.

What's it use? Well, it might make you re examine how we know every thing we think we know and that's what good scientists do, albeit in their respective fields of research every day.

I find it interesting that the existence of an external reality can't be proven. But what's really interesting is when you start to think about what this means about who we are and what our actual relationship to the universe is. There are practical implications locked up in the fact that our minds can only interact with external reality through the mediating biomechanics of our body. For instance, it might mean that our minds could be someday transfered out of our bodies into some other body or device, since our minds are not our bodies at all, but something utterly separate from our bodies, although at the moment also entirely dependent.

There are also huge epistemological implication for the hierarchy of knowledge. As this thread shows our culture values science over all other kinds of knowledge combined. But as I think I've demonstrated since we know little about the fundamental nature of the universe most of science's benefits are promises for the future, which may or may not pan out. Meanwhile, we'll have to utilize whatever epistemologies we can muster to solve our contemporary existential jams.

And, if as Stella seems to admit all our knowledge is fundamental based upon a first principle derived from "Blind Faith" then that's something for a sceptical mind to ponder...

 

[lustatopia]

Ami said,

I am enjoying your thoughts here and elsewhere, but I sense a journey for you, in search of a 'truth' that will apply on a personal basis, and I wish you success.

Why Thank you Amicus. And very insightful. I've very much enjoyed your posts here and more widely on other threads as well. I am most definitely on a journey and am a work in progress. I appreciate being able to push the limit of my understand here and always look forward to learning something new from others here.

While, as Stella well knows, I'm a bit full of myself, but what really gets me excited is to hear something new (at least new to me), something unexpected that makes new telconnections between ideas I would never have imagined without this interaction.

 

[Xelebes]

Is there a relationship between the "external" and "internal" reality? If so, what use is it to us if we cannot even grasp the relationship? Or if we can grasp the relationship, does that mean that there is evidence to show that relationship? Or is it like a mirror? If it is a mirror, does that not make it a member of the internal reality?

Yes, there is all these really neat phenomena that is just being exposed and observed, but let us consider that all phenomena that we can already observe and the observable that we have yet to observe is all part of the "internal" reality. What we have yet to observe is never part of the "external" reality.

 

[amicus]

Earlier, Stephen said extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and it occurs to me that could be the crux of misunderstanding.

The talk kept turning to things such as the experiences of Buddhist monks, who are extraordinary at least in the same sense as top sportsmen are extraordinary—they have years of training in a practical discipline. Worse, it kept turning to ‘fringe phenomena’, and I don’t even know what to say about that. If skepticism obliges me to make some “who knows” motions, in truth I just don’t spend much time considering spoon bending. It’s therefore unclear to me why we even go there.

It’s as though any talk of ‘mystery’ or ‘numinous’ translates for some folks into something like “expect to see reality as you know it wantonly violated.” That’s not what anyone suggested, though, nor does anyone here strike me as holding their breath. As far as that kind of extraordinary goes, we’re entirely right to say “let them repeat it in the lab, then we can discuss it.” Factual claims demand factual proof, extraordinary or otherwise.

No one was asked to accept any new facts, though, but merely to consider the same old in a way that recognizes the mystery therein. Admittedly, that too could be a trick: I could, for example, point out all sorts of perfectly mundane facts but insist that taken all together they point to existence of a creator. However, I’m not doing that either.

Recognizing such things as the limits of science, the shaky foundations of our knowledge, the conundrums of human condition, and so on, doesn’t lead to a creator, or to abdication of rationality. It does do all sorts of other cool things, though, like sharpening of critical skills, recognition of numinous which does not depend on metaphysical, better appreciation of social conflicts, etc. I’m really not sure why it causes such irritation.[/QUOTE]

~~~

Verdad....I must confess I get a little thrill each time I see your avatar, and an anticipation to read your thoughts and ideas....

I am continually amused by those who demean my assertion that both my feet are resting on solid ground, that I inhale and exhale and use my senses to observe that which exists around me.

Even more amused that when I assert that I can perceive more than one tree at a time, even several, that my ability to conceptualize also comes under assault.

It becomes more difficult to explain to the usual suspects why I would go to the aid of a child being abused, without knowing the child. I suppose they lack the ability to think in the abstract; no other explanation satisfies.

I bolded your last as I sense a dab of lighthearted mimicry contained therein and wanted to poke you a little for it and then deal with why there is such irritation, especially towards little ole me, in terms of absolutism.

Almost every society punishes those who take a human life without cause or force a woman to have sex against her will; not all societies, but most.

Those facts should offer our usual suspects a clue as to the universality of moral behaviors, but, unfortunately, in their haste to justify their own actions, they deny the existence of any such common events.

In my time in the Bahama's, I felt no remorse at squashing a cockroach nor at spearintg and consuming a nice plump Grouper. I would, however, be shaken to my roots were I unable to save a drowning child, any child.

Not being able to sort those feelings out, as the usual suspects propose in their fantasy world, is a terrible place to be.

Nice to see you Posting again, welcome back!

regards

ami

 

[Stella_Omega]

Earlier, Stephen said extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and it occurs to me that could be the crux of misunderstanding.

The talk kept turning to things such as the experiences of Buddhist monks, who are extraordinary at least in the same sense as top sportsmen are extraordinary—they have years of training in a practical discipline. Worse, it kept turning to ‘fringe phenomena’, and I don’t even know what to say about that. If skepticism obliges me to make some “who knows” motions, in truth I just don’t spend much time considering spoon bending. It’s therefore unclear to me why we even go there.

It’s as though any talk of ‘mystery’ or ‘numinous’ translates for some folks into something like “expect to see reality as you know it wantonly violated.” That’s not what anyone suggested, though, nor does anyone here strike me as holding their breath. As far as that kind of extraordinary goes, we’re entirely right to say “let them repeat it in the lab, then we can discuss it.” Factual claims demand factual proof, extraordinary or otherwise.

No one was asked to accept any new facts, though, but merely to consider the same old in a way that recognizes the mystery therein. Admittedly, that too could be a trick: I could, for example, point out all sorts of perfectly mundane facts but insist that taken all together they point to existence of a creator. However, I’m not doing that either.

Recognizing such things as the limits of science, the shaky foundations of our knowledge, the conundrums of human condition, and so on, doesn’t lead to a creator, or to abdication of rationality. It does do all sorts of other cool things, though, like sharpening of critical skills, recognition of numinous which does not depend on metaphysical, better appreciation of social conflicts, etc. I’m really not sure why it causes such irritation.

You've pointed to some real reasons why such talk causes so much irritation-- right in this very same post.

*shrug*

Call it PTSD, if you like. But I have too rarely experienced this discussion in good faith. I hardly ever hear someone begin with "science can't explain everything" and not go on to some form of mystic proselytizing.
And at the same time, I don't think I have ever in my lifetime heard anyone say that religion couldn't explain everything.

I suppose it's matter of proportion. Siamese cats might conceivably attack and kill a person-- but if you talk about that possibility in the same breath as pit bulls then we've got some issues of perspective.

 

[lustatopia]

Amicus Said:

Verdad....I must confess I get a little thrill each time I see your avatar, and an anticipation to read your thoughts and ideas....

I feel exactly the same way. Verdad, your posts are consistently insightful.

I've worked and been around researchers most of my life. My father was a geophysicist and my mum a biochemist. I can't recall ever being confronted with the sort of machismo gusto for the hegemony of science over all other ways of seeing that you encounter in online debates with "consumers" of the science myth. Most real research workers just don't think like that.

And I know why. Because research workers using the methods of science every day have to bump their heads every fucking day on the limits of what they can know with the cognitive tools they have. The limitations are profound. Their work is peer-reviewed and their data-sets and methods must be handed over to inquisitive minds that will take them apart if they fuck up. In the private world the scrutiny is vastly more rigorous. Imagine the geologist who recommends spending $50 million dollars to explore a potential offshore petroleum reserve to his oil company boss and investors. Or the aeronautical engineers designing a new flight control system for a super airliner. They better get it right the first time or it's all over for their careers. These kind of researchers definitely find time for alternative ways of knowing often including personal spirituality in their lives.

But more importantly, researchers understand that science doesn't actually happen outside the lab. Reading Nature or Science News gives the impression that science is all over everything. But the actual workers know that it ends when they step back from the numerical models and walk out to the parking lot to drive home for dinner. In the real world a whole other types of knowledge are what count the most.

Verdad brought up--and I am going to put this in my own words--the irrational fear that some consumers of science have of the slippery slope of the numinous leading directly to theism. This leads to a profound closed mindedness. Such as Stephen lambasting Lacan's brilliant attempt to learn something about the mind by contemplating weird topographies as analogies for mental states. In fact, we now know that mental states can only be represented as complex nonlinear 4-dimensional topographies. So Lacan was ahead of the MRI imaging technology we have today. And Dr. Stephen is behind the times.

Researchers do this all the time. Reaching out to try to make teleconnections between datasets that seem rationally disconnected. Or trying to use analogy and metaphor to find new insight to their problems. We haven't even began to discuss how many really difficult problem were solved overnight in a some researcher's dream!

What? Dreams have been used to solve hard science problems? How nonlinear is that?

 

[Stella_Omega]

In fact, we now know that mental states can only be represented as complex nonlinear 4-dimensional topographies. So Lacan was ahead of the MRI imaging technology we have today.

You could say that MRI imagery may be useful in exploring some wild and wacky ideas Lacan once had-- ideas which he could not investigate very well at the time because of the lack of technology.

"We do not know yet."

 

[amicus]

Lust, permit me, and forgive me, if necessary, if I make an observation concerning your queries.

I have two sons who have recently fathered a daughter each and they are enthralled by the mystique of female children. I can only applaud them, but not educate them, to the spirituality, which I sense you seek, of life within life, and the ultimate meaning and purpose of existence. (I packed a lot into that)

The meaning and purpose of life...is within life itself, and our own personal procreations that reflect our own existence.

I cannot know and am not asking your personal circumstances or options, but I can tell you, from the personal experience of holding a newborn child in my hands, of the miracle of birth and the universe shaking of creating a life and nurturing it.

All else, of all levels of sophistication, learning and knowledge, fades into insignificance when compared to the creation of a new life from your own existence.

The Big Bang matters not, String Theory is intellectual mastubation, the Hadron Collider is a waste of time and money; pure, theoretical science is a pass-time for the scientific elites who feed at the trough of government subsidies and produce nothing of a useful nature.

I give my charitable dollars to cancer research and other such human ailments that will, I guarantee, be, one day, solved, cured and treated.

The hedonistic pursuits of the idle rich, the 'usual suspects', are but mere escapes from facing the realities of life and lead to nowhere, erehwon, oblivion, a form of mental narcosis that can end only with insanity.

There is spirituality in nature; which is why I plant a garden each year. I currently have seven varieties blooming, even with a late, wet and cold spring and I commune with each, daily, and even converse with them, complimenting their growth or urging them to do better...foolish, I know, but there is meaning....

Although I know fully meteorological methodology, I look, several times a day as the clouds and the wind direction; I watch and consider the migration of birds, and they are late this year, I make note of the position of the sun as Spring ripens and summer approaches, I even seek out my favorite Stars and Constellations when the weather permits...spirituality within reality.

I think there is a peace to be found with a handful of soil that was deposited, in my case, by a glacier, 15,000 years ago, and of course, it matters not, but the 'knowing', gives me a smile as I drop seeds into a straight furrow I made.

Where ever your quest may take you, perhaps you will include my perceptions and conclusions...

regards

ami

 

[Verdad]

Glad to see you too, Ami. And thank you, Lustatopia! I’ve enjoyed most of your posts here, too; they’ve made me downright envious because you were able to address complex ideas in simplest of words. I’m kind of so used to arguing you guys have gotten me all self-conscious now, though, so I’ll go hide now and maybe return later.



(It’s also that point in a thread when one needs a diagram to discern who disagrees with whom on what issue. )

 

[stephen55]

Non-overlapping magisteria forever!!

Science can’t even begin to explain how the great masterpieces of human art, music and literature were created, much less how to reliable instruct machine or human to create new masterpieces of art. Yet who among us can claim that the great works of art, although ultimately subjective ways of knowing, aren’t among humanity’s greatest achievements in the realm of cognition?

Absolutely...

Science cannot explain the great works of art, music or literature. Nor should it try. Non-overlapping magisteria, constantly on guard against transgressing the boundaries.

No one seems to get worked up over the fact that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or Michelangelo's David fail miserably in explaining the emission spectra of hydrogen atoms. It would be silly to expect the arts to explain said emission spectra.

That reasoning also applies in the reverse case. Why should science be expected to explain why great works of art are great?

There's a reason why university campuses traditionally have housed the arts and the sciences in separate buildings.

So I am sceptical of people who reflexively express scepticism of the arts, the numinous, and other ways of knowing without acknowledging the serious limitations of the scientific way of knowing as well.

All of us here have our faiths perhaps most especially those among us who rail most heartily against so-called irrational, intuitive, nonlinear and numinous ways of knowledge.

For what else is a faith but the ability to close off one’s mind to alternative evidence?

I am not skeptical about other ways of knowing. University's wouldn't have faculties of arts (literature, music, language, philosophy...), education, mathematics, the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology), and yes, even theology, if these fields had nothing to offer. They do and rightly so.

What they don't have is faculties of magic, clairvoyance, potions and spells, telekinesis and sorcery.

There is nothing irrational about intuition. I've been trying to deal with a problem this way and I'm getting nowhere. Maybe if I approach it that way...

Sometimes an answer or an idea just comes into your head. I suspect that a question or problem that has been mulled over for a while suddenly comes together and it finally makes sense (an epiphany).

Non-linear thinking is (my definition) is getting from A to B without going through a series of stepwise, logical thought processes. Einstein was brilliant at it. His ideas about Special Relativity started when he imagined what would happen if he could catch up to a beam of light. What would it look like? What properties would it have? (Now that's an example of thinking outside of the box!)

His ideas about General Relativity (gravity) started when he imagined what it would be like to fall freely. (The story goes that he heard about a man who fell several stories and survived. While falling, the man said he felt "weightless".) Einstein then imagined being in an enclosed box, unable to see out. If he were floating freely in space (away from the gravitational pull of a planet) and he then felt pressure of the box against his feet, would it be due to the box accelerating (like an elevator going up) or to the presence of a large mass passing under the box (gravity)?

Einstein realized that there is no way to tell. There is no experiment he could do inside the box that could distinguish between acceleration (due to change of velocity) and the force of gravity. His intuition then told him that the two phenomena must actually be one and the same, which at first blush, sounds rather irrational.

To make it rational, Einstein had a ten year project on his hands. But that's another story.

I acknowledge the limitations of science. I just don't think those limits are a serious problem. In fact, I could say that there is no problem at all. Science is limited to the study of the real world; what is it, why is it and how does it work. Literature, sculpture and theology have nothing to do with science. Which is to say, science has nothing to do with literature, sculpture and theology. Non-overlapping magisteria forever!!

As for faith, it depends on what you mean by faith. Belief in the supernatural, divinities and the cosmic quantum interconnectedness between all of our life forces...that's belief in the numinous. That's belief in the face of complete lack of evidence. Astral channeling, chatting with the dead, psychokinesis etc, etc., starts irrational and stays irrational.

Anyone who believes that JZ Knight is talking to Ramtha, the 35,000 year old warrior prince who lead an army consisting of twice the world's population at the time...is irrational. There are those who believe JZ (have faith in her and accept her line as being true). That's one kind of faith.

Faith in the results of science is another matter entirely. I have very limited understanding of quantum mechanics but I have faith that it is real and that it works. I accept it because it has been tested time and again and experimental results agree perfectly with the theory's predictions. The semiconductors in the microchip of my laptop work because of a quantum phenomena called "quantum tunneling".

I have a basic understanding of general relativity and I have faith that it also is real and that it works. Again, the theory makes predictions which have been tested and found to hold true. My hand held GPS unit works only because the software takes into account the relativistic effects between satellite signals and earth's gravity (the curvature of spacetime due to the mass of the earth).

My faith in quantum mechanics and general relativity is backed by hard, verified and repeatable evidence.

Faith in the numinous and faith in the results of science are two very different things.

 

[stephen55]

Amicus Said:Verdad brought up--and I am going to put this in my own words--the irrational fear that some consumers of science have of the slippery slope of the numinous leading directly to theism. This leads to a profound closed mindedness. Such as Stephen lambasting Lacan's brilliant attempt to learn something about the mind by contemplating weird topographies as analogies for mental states. In fact, we now know that mental states can only be represented as complex nonlinear 4-dimensional topographies. So Lacan was ahead of the MRI imaging technology we have today. And Dr. Stephen is behind the times.

Not quite...

I lent out my copy of Fashionable Nonsense, from which I took that quote of Lacan, so I'm going from memory.

The point was that Lacan didn't just contemplate weird topological cut surfaces as analogies representing neurosis. His writing clearly equated the two.

My question is why different cuts through a non-existent four dimensional Klein bottle to represent various mental illnesses? I could just as easily state that Lacan is a pompous buffoon because we all know that mental illnesses are best represented by various five dimensional cuts through an eight dimensional hypersphere. My position would make every bit as much sense as Lacan's. That is, no sense at all.

If my position is crap (which is why I jest), how do you call Lacan's position brilliant?

And, for chrissakes, how do we now know that mental states can be represented by complex, non-linear four dimensional topographies? What exactly, is a complex non-linear four dimensional topography anyway?

Are you sure you shouldn't have said five dimensional? How about non-recursive, seven dimensional eigenstates of non-Fourier analysis? Would that work as a representation of mental states?

And just what has any of this to do with MRI technology?

From the Wikipedia article on Lacan...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan

"Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont in their book Fashionable Nonsense have criticised Lacan's use of terms from mathematical fields such as topology, accusing him of "superficial erudition" and of abusing scientific concepts that he does not understand. Other critics have dismissed Lacan's work wholesale. François Roustang called it an "incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish," and quoted linguist Noam Chomsky's opinion that Lacan was an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan". Dylan Evans, formerly a Lacanian analyst, eventually dismissed Lacanianism as lacking a sound scientific basis and for harming rather than helping patients, and has criticized Lacan's followers for treating his writings as "holy writ." Richard Webster has decried what he sees as Lacan's obscurity, arrogance, and the resultant "Cult of Lacan"."

Lacan wasn't ahead of his time. He was off on another planet.

 

[Verdad]

Not quite...

I lent out my copy of Fashionable Nonsense, from which I took that quote of Lacan, so I'm going from memory.

The point was that Lacan didn't just contemplate weird topological cut surfaces as analogies representing neurosis. His writing clearly equated the two.

My question is why different cuts through a non-existent four dimensional Klein bottle to represent various mental illnesses? I could just as easily state that Lacan is a pompous buffoon because we all know that mental illnesses are best represented by various five dimensional cuts through an eight dimensional hypersphere. My position would make every bit as much sense as Lacan's. That is, no sense at all.

If my position is crap (which is why I jest), how do you call Lacan's position brilliant?

And, for chrissakes, how do we now know that mental states can be represented by complex, non-linear four dimensional topographies? What exactly, is a complex non-linear four dimensional topography anyway?

Are you sure you shouldn't have said five dimensional? How about non-recursive, seven dimensional eigenstates of non-Fourier analysis? Would that work as a representation of mental states?

And just what has any of this to do with MRI technology?

From the Wikipedia article on Lacan...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan

"Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont in their book Fashionable Nonsense have criticised Lacan's use of terms from mathematical fields such as topology, accusing him of "superficial erudition" and of abusing scientific concepts that he does not understand. Other critics have dismissed Lacan's work wholesale. François Roustang called it an "incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish," and quoted linguist Noam Chomsky's opinion that Lacan was an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan". Dylan Evans, formerly a Lacanian analyst, eventually dismissed Lacanianism as lacking a sound scientific basis and for harming rather than helping patients, and has criticized Lacan's followers for treating his writings as "holy writ." Richard Webster has decried what he sees as Lacan's obscurity, arrogance, and the resultant "Cult of Lacan"."

Lacan wasn't ahead of his time. He was off on another planet.

The use I, personally, have got out of acquainting myself minimally with Lacan’s system is kind of like that of a seldom used word—it’s stuck in your mind somewhere and every once in a great while it’s just the concept you need for nailing something down. Additional reason for checking out controversial thinkers is that you get to track the evolution of ideas in a period, and his period was busy running through the permutations in the wake of the truly groundbreaking figures and developments.

Lacan does have a system, though (even if from that para you’d never guess it!) and some, in several fields, have found it of greater use. I can confirm he’s indeed notorious for obfuscatory language, fishy-looking use of diagrams and Russell’s notation, a cultish-creating behavior in his lifetime, and other stuff I am not fond of, but a more thorough evaluation of his contribution I leave to those who are competent to make one and to the future.

I think even though you’ve just written about the non overlapping magisteria, you are in fact applying wrong criteria to Lacan. You can look at his work as hypothesis creation, and leave it to the interested scientists to determine whether his model possesses predictive value. You can also look at it, for want of better word, as art, or metaphor creation, and see if you get anywhere by applying it. If it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s okay, but you’re not right to think everyone who finds an application for it is delusional or naïve.

I know this is not very satisfying because it leaves you without immediate means to separate wheat from the chaff, but that’s knowledge acquisition for ya—long and slow, rife with trials and errors, and in the meantime, in your life, you have to throw in your lot with some thing or other, or in other words, act on faith.

 

[stephen55]

I think even though you’ve just written about the non overlapping magisteria, you are in fact applying wrong criteria to Lacan. You can look at his work as hypothesis creation, and leave it to the interested scientists to determine whether his model possesses predictive value. You can also look at it, for want of better word, as art, or metaphor creation, and see if you get anywhere by applying it. If it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s okay, but you’re not right to think everyone who finds an application for it is delusional or naïve.

My problem with Lacan and his idea that the structure of mental illness is explained by a cut through a (four dimensional) Klein bottle, or a three dimensional torus is that...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Klein_bottle.svg/240px-Klein_bottle.svg.png

...no one can make a Klein bottle (in a three spatial dimensional world). The idea is that the thin tube part, curves back into the wider part and goes through it without touching it. This is only possible in a four spatial dimensional world.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Acme_klein_bottle.jpg/150px-Acme_klein_bottle.jpg

You can make a representation of a Klein bottle, but you can't get it to pass through itself without touching itself.

Lacan was claiming knowledge of topology and would have (should have) known that in our world, a Klein bottle is a mathematical abstract, a purely artificial device. If he was claiming to be able to visualize in four dimensions...all power to him. If he was claiming to be able to visualize a cut through a four dimensional abstract...more power to him. But he goes on to state that mental illness is explained by a cut on a topological surface. Not just symbolized or analogized...explained.

A torus is the surface of a doughnut or a bagel.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Torus.png/250px-Torus.png

It is also the surface of a one handle coffee mug.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Wikipedia_mug.jpg/220px-Wikipedia_mug.jpg

A torus is simply any surface that has one hole. (Mathematicians call it genus 1.)

You can take any torus and stretch it, twist it, inflate part of it, make depressions in it and as long as you don't tear it (get rid of the hole or create another hole), you still have a torus.

However, you can cut it in two ways. Picture a bagel, cut in the traditional manner. You now have two circles of bagel. You have two tori.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2DfKLOvBQPWKt5nzCpLo41GIx1crnJ6lCGHVjNWFVAk4tNQnz

Or, cut through the bagel this way...(forget the sandwich fillings...)

http://whats4lunch.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/the-bagel-market-blt-special.jpg

You no longer have a torus or two tori. You have two surfaces with no holes.

Of the above two images, which cut torus represents the neurotic patient?

I don't know, either.

Lacan was a trained medical doctor. He went on to specialize in psychiatry. He then took up psychoanalysis. He treated patients. He taught others to treat patients.

Cutting bagels or coffee mugs has no predictive power for explaining mental illness. Cutting bagels or coffee mugs has no predictive power for figuring out how to treat mental illness. Any psychiatrist or psychotherapist who feels that it does is not only deluded and naive, they are dangerous.

There may be a certain art to cutting a bagel. In Yiddish, someone who can't cut a bagel without cutting them self is a klutz.

Lacan tried to puff up his nonsense by wrapping it in mathematical and topological terminology. He was perfectly free to wrap psychoanalysis in psychoanalytic terms. Originally he tried. In 1932, his thesis On Paranoiac Psychosis in its Relations to the Personality was ignored by his contemporary analysts. It was, however lapped up by the the avant garde of the day, the surrealists like Georges Bataille, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. Lacan was off and running. Dali and Picasso tried to paint two dimensional representations of four dimensional objects. My guess is that Lacan was just trying to keep up, except he wasn't working with paint and canvas. He was working with ill people.

I wonder how many of them jumped into the Seine because they weren't getting any better by seeing themselves as a cut bagel, let alone figuring out how to transform into a sphere, Lacan's symbol of totality.

I think I'll stop now.

 

[Verdad]

Lacan tried to puff up his nonsense by wrapping it in mathematical and topological terminology. He was perfectly free to wrap psychoanalysis in psychoanalytic terms. Originally he tried. In 1932, his thesis On Paranoiac Psychosis in its Relations to the Personality was ignored by his contemporary analysts. It was, however lapped up by the the avant garde of the day, the surrealists like Georges Bataille, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. Lacan was off and running. Dali and Picasso tried to paint two dimensional representations of four dimensional objects. My guess is that Lacan was just trying to keep up, except he wasn't working with paint and canvas. He was working with ill people.

I wonder how many of them jumped into the Seine because they weren't getting any better by seeing themselves as a cut bagel, let alone figuring out how to transform into a sphere, Lacan's symbol of totality.

I think I'll stop now.

I don’t want to argue about that para because I've no idea of the exact context in which it belongs, and more important, it by no means contains some kind of central tenet of Lacan's thought. For all I know, the para may be an off the cuff remark on page 564 of some minor discussion.

Lacan’s key terms are the three modes/orders of our functioning (imaginary, symbolic, and real) and his key object of examination is the role of language in formation of subjectivity and indeed sentience.

Even if he’d gone off into the woods in this examination, it’s almost ironic that we’re arguing about him while also arguing about the issue of reality and mediation. I’ll stop here too though, because I’m not going to expound on a notoriously difficult thinker from memory and superficial knowledge, and also because I’m not really invested in defending him in particular.

I’m in agreement with you as far as harm to patients goes, but that is sadly not something you could pin only on Lacan, or even only on psychotherapists. The ever-so scientific approach of stuffing everyone with psychopharmacs has had its share of hits and misses too and continues to be questionable. As always, we’re being generals after the battle and noticing that psychoanalytic approaches, conceived in the 19th century, aren’t all they were supposed to be, while firmly believing now we’ve got it right. And that’s without even considering whether there’s anything to get right or whether maybe there’s something slightly totalitarian in the whole business.

 

[Stella_Omega]

...
I’m in agreement with you as far as harm to patients goes, but that is sadly not something you could pin only on Lacan, or even only on psychotherapists. The ever-so scientific approach of stuffing everyone with psychopharmacs has had its share of hits and misses too and continues to be questionable. As always, we’re being generals after the battle and noticing that psychoanalytic approaches, conceived in the 19th century, aren’t all they were supposed to be, while firmly believing now we’ve got it right. And that’s without even considering whether there’s anything to get right or whether maybe there’s something slightly totalitarian in the whole business.

WHO, in fact, "Firmly believes they've got it right?"

The public, which has been taught to believe things by way of authority-- the religious authorities of this society. The public keeps on applying religion to science.

I say this over and over, but if our kids went to a Science school on Sundays where they learned about scrutiny, evidence, critical thinking, and thinking in general-- instead of Bible studies-- this society would be in better shape.

 

[squarejohn]

Here is something to chew on.

How do you define "infinity?" How do you define "eternity?"

I define infinity as "no space." I define eternity as "no time."

If my definitions are true, as I believe they are, and I have faith in that belief, the universe, in actuality, can be nothing else that a single point. a singularity. I suggest that the singularity is consciousness, which has no size, no age, and is located nowhere. How do like them apples?

 

[stephen55]

I’m in agreement with you as far as harm to patients goes, but that is sadly not something you could pin only on Lacan, or even only on psychotherapists. The ever-so scientific approach of stuffing everyone with psychopharmacs has had its share of hits and misses too and continues to be questionable. As always, we’re being generals after the battle and noticing that psychoanalytic approaches, conceived in the 19th century, aren’t all they were supposed to be, while firmly believing now we’ve got it right. And that’s without even considering whether there’s anything to get right or whether maybe there’s something slightly totalitarian in the whole business.

I certainly don't mean to pin only Lacan. My rant against those who misuse science and math singled him out because (my opinion) he is a particularly dangerous example. Others may be of no direct danger to people (as in patients) but still mislead, confuse and distort. Fashionable Nonsense targeted the social sciences but you're certainly correct in that examples are everywhere. Politics comes to mind...

Psychoanalytic approaches never were based on anything remotely resembling science. Freud started out as a medical doctor specializing in neurology. He abandoned medical approaches and instead, concentrated on free analysis and dream interpretation. A pseudo-science was born.

One thing modern psychiatry doesn't believe is that it's got it right. It's definitely a work in process. That said, it's present roots are firmly in research and controlled clinical trials.

I object to your assertion that there isn't even a consideration of whether there is anything to get right. Unlike Thomas Szasz, I firmly believe there is nothing mythical about mental illness. As a backwoods country doc, I recall far more emotional misery, fractured minds, suicides and family devastation due to mental illness than I care to remember.

As for treating mental illness being slightly totalitarian, on rare occasions, yes. In Canada a patient cannot be treated against their wishes unless they are a danger to themselves or others. It doesn't happen very often but if a patient is in a psychotic break or perhaps in a manic phase of bipolar illness, and refuses treatment, they can be committed and held until they no longer pose a danger. It can get unpleasant for all involved but compared to the havoc that can come from no treatment, it is the lesser of the two evils.

 

[stephen55]

Here is something to chew on.

How do you define "infinity?" How do you define "eternity?"

I define infinity as "no space." I define eternity as "no time."

If my definitions are true, as I believe they are, and I have faith in that belief, the universe, in actuality, can be nothing else that a single point. a singularity. I suggest that the singularity is consciousness, which has no size, no age, and is located nowhere. How do like them apples?

I don't like those apples.

When you start with a few prepositions and by applying logic, arrive at an absurd conclusion...it's a good idea to go back and examine your prepositions.