In my experience, the modern study of literature has more to do with the modern study of philosophy than the modern study of science does. So I lean in your direction, JR. The use of "Ph.D." is influenced by historical circumstance - science grew out of philosophy. I'm not trying to downplay the connection - many, many fields of study rely on other fields, and studying one field will often aid a person in studying another (I've often heard that studying music will make someone a better software developer.)

I just think Science & Philosophy are grouped on this site to balance 'the total number of forums' with 'the activity levels in any one forum'.

As an issue of perception, I agree with this. I hold that the material reality is real, but we cannot perceive it directly. What we think we perceive is a projection that is (amongst sane people) largely informed by the reality itself. Everyone has varying ability/tendency to have a 'more accurate' and 'less accurate' projections, but the very nature of our senses and nervous system prevent perfection.

All of this is a different issue than the nature of the material reality itself. Once you involve certain elements into your investigation - such as the use of mechanical devices, measurement, insistence on repeatability, extreme care and deliberateness in one's deduction/inferencing - the consequences of our imperfect perceptual machinery are reduced.

So, to my mind: the sunlight I see is projected by my mind in response (hopefully) to light reaching my retina - but the sunlight that charges the battery on my solar panel has not been projected by my mind in any way. And the sunlight that actually strikes my retina has not been projected by my mind, either.

I am not saying this to argue with you about 'the actual truth' - but only to show that there are many different ideas as to what one may mean by a 'projected reality'.




Completely agree.



Again, for what I'm about to say I'm not trying to argue against your worldview - only to prevent an apparent logical progression from being based on slipping different ideas under the same words.

When physcists speak of vibrations and fields, they are using these words in a very specific way.

And you are correct, matter changes when the vibrations are changed - apparently according to certain rules. I can change the vibrations in matter by putting something in the oven - that matter is going to correspondingly change. Just because the words 'vibration' and 'field' are often associated with various non-physical, or non-reality-based ideas (while matter itself can be described using the same words) does not mean that those ideas have anything to do with actual matter.


Its been fashionable for several decades now for new-agers to co-op the language of physicists to give their new age beliefs the appearance of credibility. In another thread, someone said that by meditating they 'raise their vibration'. I think maybe they might elevate their mood, they might shift their perspective to a less selfish perspective, they may reduce the impact of reactive tendencies in their thought habits, there are many wonderful things that may actually happen to a person through meditation. These are very real effects. But as far as I'm concerned, 'raising your vibration' is merely a metaphoric description. As far as we know, there is nothing whose 'vibration' is actually influenced by meditation in the sense that a guitar string vibrates, nor in the sense that light has a frequency. Yes, there are oscillations in our brain wave activity, but substituting 'changes in brain wave activity' with 'raising ones vibration' is step towards a less precise and meaningful thought process - and is rarely what is meant when people speak of 'raising their vibration'.

JB,

Going back to your 7:24am post, tt seems to me that you are using the term "agnostic" in the sense of "with respect to some particular topic or claim" - and not necessarily any of the topics or claims that are most often under consideration when people use the word agnostic. AFAIK, this is an absolutely a valid use of the word, and we are all agnostic on some topic or claim.

On the whole, it seems to me that you are refining your use of these terms based on the many definitions and explanations that people are posting.

Yes. I think you caught the fact that I didn't mean this thread in particular - I meant many dozens of threads together. I see the current conversation as simply a continuation/variation of one very large conversation which has been going on for months and months on here, mostly amongst the same people. I hope no one takes my dry, matter-of-fact observation as a criticism of any kind.

JB, You are correct that the ideas that we normal everyday people normally ascribe to 'solid matter' is not what we find when we examine matter on the smallest level we can. All that means is that we are wrong, and we should qualify our trust in our senses and our intuition. Our everyday idea of matter is an illusion - but that doesn't mean that the actual matter is an illusion. It appears that electrons (which I view only as probability distributions) are real, as they are, and their interactions are real.

I thought you said you wanted to approach this maturely.

All you peeps gots you some stamina!

No. You can read. Go visit wikipedia and start reading about these fields of mathematics, and think about what you read.

Besides, you haven't presented an argument that has anything to do with my claims - you've mentioned that arithmetic is often used by those studying combinatorics, and sometimes used by those studying topology. That has nothing to do with what combinatorics and topology essentially are.



I'm normally paid at least $20 an hour to do what you are asking. I will tutor you via voip/IM if you want it. As far as me writing up explanations on here, people much smarter, better educated, and more articulate than I have already written volumes (haha) out there on the intertubes for you to read.



I think you'll go a lot farther with that approach - but regarding which claim, exactly?



Where is the bullying?

Maybe you would benefit from taking some responsibility for the effect of your approach.

My personal belief is that we simply do not understand what is really going on in those situations where this would appear to be true.



I've seen no examples of this.

I have seen examples of people confusing 'logic' with 'common sense', and examples where people's logic was faulty, and examples where incorrect or insufficient information was involved.




I see no value in claiming they are 'almost identical'. Logic applies to topology, topology uses logic, but beyond that the study of logic has little to do with the study of topology. These are different fields.

I find that the quality/clarity of a persons thinking is almost always improved when they recognize and remember the differences between things, and the quality of their thinking almost always degrades when they want to blur things together, and ignore their distinctions. Unless one is deliberately and appropriately grouping by shared qualities.

Did you ever read what I wrote? Why would you ask a rhetorical question that has nothing to do with what I actually wrote? Notice the phrase 'can be explored'. What is the true essence of topology? Of combinatorics? Of geometry? Of actual algebra?

Investigate those and you will find arithmetic to be incidental.



All true, all presumably relevant to your point, and all irrelevant to my point of view.



Notice your language use - you say "can they work". It seems to me that you are approaching these fields from an 'applied' perspective. Regardless, the essence of topology and combinatorics has nothing to do with arithmetic. Algebra itself (actual algebra, not the algebra taught pre-university, nor the algebra used by engineers, etc) requires no arightmetic. Geometry requires no arithmetic.

Using any of these fields for a real life problem... I find it hard to imagine doing so without arithmetic.



Good. Question it. Learn more about what mathematics actually is.

You said in an earlier post which strongly suggests to me that you have little understanding of what mathematics really is. These operations have nothing to do with actual mathematics, and everything to do with 'that which is labelled math in the public school system'.



Based on the discussion so far, I think its unlikely you understood me, but you go on ahead and disagree with whatever you thought I meant.




And this has what to do with arithmetic?

"JR & JaneStar, sittin' in a tree..."

Many would say 'yes, but only some of us know/admit this'.

As Bushi explained, one can be 'agnostic' and still be a theist. You sound a lot like an anti-religious agnostic theist.



This is a common use of the term. It is not consistent with the way the term is used in the discourse community of 'academic philosophers', but that doesn't make it 'wrong'. I think its silly when people insist the word can only be validly used in one particular way. That said, its also good for us to be aware of how 'the professionals' use the term, and Bushido is doing a great job of explaining that.




Sorry, but thats just completely wrong. You are ascribing a separate, additional belief to a group of people who are categorized only by a lack of a particular belief. This is completely illogical, and strikes me as a form of bigotry against atheists.

This kind of bigotry is common amongst people who have spent a lot of time with theists.

I haven't been following the discussion, but would like to chime in here and declare:

Arithmetic is but a tiny slice of 'all that is mathematics'.

It just so happens that they teach arithmetic throughout elementary school, and call it 'math'.

Topology and combinatorics are just two entire fields of mathematics that can be explored without involving any arithmetic at all.

It really bugs me when people equate arithmetic and mathematics. I knew an self described 'anti-math' philosophy student (who actually disliked arithmetic) who finally discovered real math in a higher level philosophy class. He had a lot of difficulty accepting that what he was studying was actually math.

Well I just wanted to re-read the comments in the thread, since I had been (and am) very curious about the cause of hair loss.

I heard a suggestion that the sloth might have died, then fallen in to the water where some combination of 'rushing water' and/or bacterial action might have lead to the hair loss. Also, that there were patches that still had hair. If there is any truth to the above, it would probably mean the kids were lying about having killed it with stones.

These questions keep me up at night.

Thats awesome... i'm not a fan of the non-physical keyboard, but the flexible OLED is great!

We all know this is happening, and will continue to happen more and more, but this experience was surprising to me so I thought I'd share it.

A few weeks ago I emailed a business contact.
Later I called her, and didn't bother putting her name in my phone.

Today I was looking through my contacts, and was surprised to see her name in there (since I hadn't entered it) - when I opened her entry in my contact list, on my phone, her photo is there.

All because (a) I emailed her, once (and not from my phone) and (b) she uploaded a photo of herself, tied to her email address.


You know, its cool and all - nice that things like this can happen automatically, behind the scenes, but I don't want my business contacts to necessarily have a photo of me. Worse, I don't want every person I happen to email, ever, for any reason, to have a photo of me. Or worse still - anyone who ever gets their grubby little paws on my email address.

I know this is an easy problem to prevent, and prevent it I did due to (what others have termed) extreme paranoia. When I first encountered 'photos tied to email' so many years ago, my friends seemed to think that only your friends, whom you chat with via IM, would ever see that photo. I figure anything I upload, ever, is released to the whole world, forever, so I opted for an artists rendering of a black hole rather than a picture of me.

Still, it rather bugs me that anyone using an advanced phone who has any email contact with me might have that 'black hole' photo placed in their phone's contact list. Yes, I can take down the photo - but consider that this feature has probably been available to others for years, and has escaped my attention till now.

My "why do you use a 'space' photo???!!" friends thought I was being insanely paranoid, so many years ago... and today I have this persons photo in my phone, without their permission.

And to think of all that personal data up on facebook...

I wonder if one day a person will be able to simply take out their cell and surreptitiously shoot a photo of a random stranger, and (via image-matching search, and social networks) pull up that persons name, age, vocation, address, pictures of their family members...

I really hate paypal. With a passion. But I suppose thats a topic for another thread... today I just want to ask:


What are the alternatives to ebay? Which do you use?

Yeah, of course I can google for it, but want to hear from the people on here - not see which company has the best 'google page rank optimization team'.

(sigh) I'm left unsure whether you have read my posts in this thread, as I have already comment at length to this effect.



Again, I'm baffled by this sentence. I want to be clear that I'm really not trying to pick an argument with you, I just don't understand in which context you make many of your statements. The quoted use of the word technique, here, was 'me trying to clarify your words'; at that time, I wasn't talking about any technique at all.


In the previous paragraph, I made a general statement about how 'movements' will blend useful techniques with silly dogma; depending on how you finely you discriminate, there are probably many 'techniques' advocated by AKers that have (or may have) practical value.

I have the impression that you consider kinesiology 'valid' and AK 'invalid', and further that if anyone is discussing a 'valid technique', you would rather call it K than AK....maybe because by definition anything valid belongs under K, not AK...or maybe for fear of giving 'those wacky AK people' any credibility....or maybe I'm just completely wrong in my speculation about your thought process.

If you are having a real emergency, you can run out and buy enough cable to use the LAN.

When I have "trouble shooting wireless", I just relax, focus, and make sure to gently squeeze the trigger after letting out a half-breath. One can also use a scope, or simply move closer to the target.

Okay, I have a much better understanding now of where you are coming from in this thread, and this strengthens my opinion that you and I have not been talking about the same thing. I simply make a very general assertion, outside of the context of AK, that the way in which thoughts effect muscle tension, strength, and stamina can be used to gain insight into one's own mind. This is pretty much self evident. I disagree with many of the more specific claims made by AK enthusiasts.

Many of the more popular 'movements' of this type weave (a) a technique of real practical value with (b) a very appealing but ultimately wrong (contrary to reality) worldview. So I agree with Ladylid on (a), and with you on (b).



I have the sense that when you say 'it' here, you are referring to the whole of the AK belief system - not any particular technique.