On 2024-12-08, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 00:31:44 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> Careful ... the "luminiferous aether" WORKED - at least with the
>> existing physics
>
> When Galileo was doing his best to piss off the pope Ptolemy's geocentric
> model gave more accurate predictions than the Copernican heliocentric
> model. Yes, it was complcated but it WORKED.

Perhaps, but the Copernican model won out in the end.

I always enjoyed the fact that "geocentric" becomes even more appropriate
when you swap the first two letters.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 2024-12-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>
>> The new guys don't know Linux from their assholes so
>> I don't know if it's still there ... they just pay
>> M$ lots and lots of $$$ and if anything goes wrong
>> they blame M$ or external vendors. Tragic.

s/blame/shovel more money at/

Your typical luser now just shrugs his shoulders and re-boots,
re-formats, and re-installs, while meekly accepting that this is
The Way Things Are.

> This is indeed tragic! It will be fun to see the IT budget explode.
> It will also be fun to watch them when Microsoft cloud services go
> down from time to time, and all they can do is to have a coffee and wait.

Given that M$'s quality critera can be summed up as
"sort of works, most of the time", we'll be seeing
plenty of this - although there will probably be a
higher-priced option that goes down slightly less often.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 2024-12-08, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:

> You must not have had much experience with helping out 'typical users'
> (i.e., often those who "just want to get their job X done on this dang
> computer").
>
> Move a button 40 pixels in any cardinal direction on their GUI, but
> otherwise leave the label unchanged, and 40% of those users will be
> unable to function until someone else shows them the new location of
> the button.

This is why the release of a new upgrade will always be a time of
great wailing and gnashing of teeth - which will hopefully end a
year or two before the next release starts it all over again.

> A huge number of folks get by via little more than rote memorization
> for computer usage, and seemingly have zero ability to generalize.

If they're only ever doing the same job, this is not necessarily a
bad thing. It also saves on the re-training budget. But it leaves
them sitting ducks for the proponents of change for its own sake.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On 2024-12-08, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 08/12/2024 16:33, Rich wrote:
>
>> A huge number of folks get by via little more than rote memorization
>> for computer usage, and seemingly have zero ability to generalize.
>
> I was always amazed at the database entry and access staff who could
> touch type and absolutely had only one set of menus and no GUI on an
> 80x25 screen.
>
> The speed they achieved because everything was the same every day was
> amazing.
>
> I wouldn't want someone moving the brake pedal on my car, either.
>
> Gui crap is built by coders for coders.
>
> Most people just want to click on Button A and get to their bank, key in
> the security shit and pay their bills etc.
>
> The GUI is actually a distraction

Perhaps, but it's so _pretty_! And the purchasing decisions are made by
the PHBs anyway, not the poor suckers who are trying to get some work done.

It drive me nuts when I watch J. Random Luser pointing and clicking and
pointing and clicking and dragging and dropping and... oops, where did I
drop that icon? Hold on a minute... And all the time they're proudly
proclaiming how _easy_ the system is to use, when I could get the job
done in a dozen keystrokes on a properly-designed system.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 08/12/2024 05:31, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>> On 12/7/24 6:59 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 06/12/2024 17:12, D wrote:
>>>> If you postulate something which can never be known, it is kind of
>>>> useless. It goes the same way as god, or a postulated first mover etc.
>>>
>>> And yet that is what people do all the time. In fact it is the necessary
>>> foundation of thinking.
>>>
>>> All metaphysics - and we all use it, whether we understand that we do or
>>> not -  is to assume the framework for our understanding, and use it not
>>> because it is demonstrably true, but because it *works* for us.
>>>
>>> We don't  and can't *know* that time and space exist - at least in the way
>>> we understand them, but they do *work* for us, the way we understand them.
>>
>>   Careful ... the "luminiferous aether" WORKED - at least
>>   with the existing physics  :-)
>>
> Exactly. That was Karl Poppers point. We don't discover the laws, we
> actually make them up, and if they work, we use them.

If you are interested, Bas van Fraassen probably has some interesting
things to add as well. There was also a german guy who wrote something
interesting in the 1920s I think on that theme, but for the moment the
name does not come back to me.

Ahh, here we go!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_%27As_if%27 .

> Mickelson-Morley rather gave the lie to a physically meaningful aether, so it
> was dropped.
>
> #
>
>>   I suspect 'dark matter' will occupy a similar position.
>>
> :-) Probably
>
>

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> On 08/12/2024 10:48, D wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> On 07/12/2024 21:48, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 07/12/2024 16:39, D wrote:
>>>>>> So therefore, metaphysics doesn't really exist, except as thought forms
>>>>>> to make us feel better (if we need that), in which case it's just a
>>>>>> bunch of nice stories.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well you are starting to make clear a completely metaphysical position
>>>>> here.
>>>>>
>>>>> What do you mean by 'really exist' ?
>>>>
>>>> With not exist, I mean s an unprovable, ideal reality separate from the
>>>> material world.
>>>
>>> Ok like the place where 'natural laws' live?
>>
>> There is no place where natural laws live, in fact, the laws we know is
>> just a process in our brains, describing (and predicting) events. They
>> don't live in any dimension. There is no proof of that.
>
> Isn't 'in your brain' a dimension?
>

Nope. It resides safely and securely in the real world and does not have
its own dimension where ideal and laws live.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:04:17 +0100, D wrote:

> Did the second attempt give you enlightenment or a new depth to life?
> I've never touched any other drugs besides coffee, tea and alcohol, but
> I did have a spontaneous explosion of love once when I was 15. I've had
> a few mild echoes of that experience, but never anything close to the
> strength of it since.

No. I don't remember much of it other than it wasn't a completely
paranoid experience like the first one.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:06:38 +0100, D wrote:

> Got it! Glad to hear it worked and isn't causing you any serious
> trouble! =) I am starting to get a bit worried about my old father when
> there's too much ice on the pavement. He did slip last winter on his way
> home from the grocery store, but nothing serious. He's only a child
> though (73) so plenty of more year to go!

Child? That makes me feel better since I have a few years on him.

The irony is I have a collection of YakTraks and micro-spikes that I use
when hiking. I was walking two blocks to the grocery store on mostly dry
pavement. There was a frozen puddle at the end of the company driveway
that I navigated around but missed an icy patch on the other side. I went
down fast and hard. Another pedestrian had seen me fall and asked if I was
okay. I said yes as I scrambled back up. Then I realized that wasn't going
to work. They called 911 since my phone was safely on my desk.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 11:59:17 +0100, D wrote:

> But there is this wonderful inflection point, where christianity went
> from a personal mystic method to find enlightenment, to become a tool to
> control and build society.
>
> I wonder if the mystics lost because of 1. being more interested in the
> "within" and personal experience than power and 2. the other guys being
> more interested in power and cared nothing for god, but saw the
> opportunity. I guess the 3. is St Paul fearing that christianity would
> split into a 1000 pieces if the mystics with their own individual
> experiences were allowed to continue.

Other than the Gnostics I don't see much mysticism in early Christianity
rather than sort of a consoling belief for the lumpen proletariat.
Constantine was the start of the control.

Mystics like Ecckhart, John of the Cross, Tauler, Teresa of Avila, and so
forth were a problem for the hierarchy and treated with suspicion if not
outright condemned as heretics.

Even in recent times Teilhard de Chardin was ordered not to publish or
teach his ideas. That's no different than Eckhart who would have been
ignored if he hadn't tried to teach.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 16:33:14 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

> You must not have had much experience with helping out 'typical users'
> (i.e., often those who "just want to get their job X done on this dang
> computer").

No, I do not.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:10:55 +0100, D wrote:

> I'm no expert, but I'd say the sitting version sounds more "original".
> As for Watts, I'm always skeptical of those kind of new ages guys, but
> very often people seem to be huge fans.

The story has several variations but the general theme is Gautama spent 6
years trying the various New Age techniques with no success until he
decided to plant himself under the Bodhi tree until he figured it out.

Then came the systemizers and the immense body of Abhidharma literature,
followed by the different schools arguing over interpretation.

I always had problems with some of those texts. Those people would have
loved LibreOffice since everything is enumerated lists. I can't reliably
remember the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Twelve
Links of Dependent Origination let alone the subgroupings like the Five
Skahndas.

That's probably why I like Nietzsche; sprawling, self-contradictory, spur
of the moment aphorisms with no attempt to build a system. That's better
than Schopenhauer's 'On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason' which he claims is the key to understanding The World as Will.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:15:59 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Isn't 'in your brain' a dimension?

Not unless you consider various electrochemical processes a dimension.
There ain't no there there.

On 12/8/24 2:50 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-12-08, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> The new guys don't know Linux from their assholes so
>>> I don't know if it's still there ... they just pay
>>> M$ lots and lots of $$$ and if anything goes wrong
>>> they blame M$ or external vendors. Tragic.
>
> s/blame/shovel more money at/
>
> Your typical luser now just shrugs his shoulders and re-boots,
> re-formats, and re-installs, while meekly accepting that this is
> The Way Things Are.

It's not just "users" anymore ... they aren't expected
to know much. It's also a very large segment of IT. The
goal is to Blame Someone Else - not deal, not fix, not
defend, not innovate.

>> This is indeed tragic! It will be fun to see the IT budget explode.
>> It will also be fun to watch them when Microsoft cloud services go
>> down from time to time, and all they can do is to have a coffee and wait.
>
> Given that M$'s quality critera can be summed up as
> "sort of works, most of the time

", we'll be seeing
> plenty of this - although there will probably be a
> higher-priced option that goes down slightly less often.

Yep ... create problem, then CHARGE everyone huge $$$
FOR the problems ........

Almost an infallible biz model eh ? :-)

Who said Bill wasn't smart ?

On 12/8/24 7:11 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 08/12/2024 05:31, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>> On 12/7/24 6:59 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 06/12/2024 17:12, D wrote:
>>>> If you postulate something which can never be known, it is kind of
>>>> useless. It goes the same way as god, or a postulated first mover etc.
>>>
>>> And yet that is what people do all the time. In fact it is the
>>> necessary foundation of thinking.
>>>
>>> All metaphysics - and we all use it, whether we understand that we do
>>> or not -  is to assume the framework for our understanding, and use
>>> it not because it is demonstrably true, but because it *works* for us.
>>>
>>> We don't  and can't *know* that time and space exist - at least in
>>> the way we understand them, but they do *work* for us, the way we
>>> understand them.
>>
>>    Careful ... the "luminiferous aether" WORKED - at least
>>    with the existing physics  :-)
>>
> Exactly. That was Karl Poppers point. We don't discover the  laws, we
> actually make them up, and if they work, we use them.
>
> Mickelson-Morley rather gave the lie to a physically meaningful aether,
> so it was dropped.

We stick with what we "know" until it's impossible to
ignore the little flaws. Even then, some Bigger Picture
had better be ready. Einstein/Planck/Bohr provided that
Bigger Picture at just the right time - but it COULD have
been a 100 year gap.

Now ? Another 100 years ???

Of note ... the validity of said models seems particularly
vulnerable to the INSTRUMENTATION that can be brought to
bear. Newton seemed fine - until telescopes were good
enough to notice that tiny little problem with Mercury.
Seems like every time the instruments have a 10x improvement
we have to create a whole new physics/cosmology.

Until the next 10x improvement ......

The Webb scope is finding big organized galaxies way
out/back that weren't supposed to BE there. Now we'll
need a new cosmology/timeline.

But ... in a 4-D bubble, if you look FAR enough you
will start seeing yer own ass. Are these 'ancient
galaxies' real, or just the ass-end view of nearer
galaxies ? :-)

> #
>
>>    I suspect 'dark matter' will occupy a similar position.
>>
> :-) Probably

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:04:17 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Did the second attempt give you enlightenment or a new depth to life?
>> I've never touched any other drugs besides coffee, tea and alcohol, but
>> I did have a spontaneous explosion of love once when I was 15. I've had
>> a few mild echoes of that experience, but never anything close to the
>> strength of it since.
>
> No. I don't remember much of it other than it wasn't a completely
> paranoid experience like the first one.
>

Ahh... well, nothing for me then. ;)

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:06:38 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Got it! Glad to hear it worked and isn't causing you any serious
>> trouble! =) I am starting to get a bit worried about my old father when
>> there's too much ice on the pavement. He did slip last winter on his way
>> home from the grocery store, but nothing serious. He's only a child
>> though (73) so plenty of more year to go!
>
> Child? That makes me feel better since I have a few years on him.
>
> The irony is I have a collection of YakTraks and micro-spikes that I use
> when hiking. I was walking two blocks to the grocery store on mostly dry
> pavement. There was a frozen puddle at the end of the company driveway
> that I navigated around but missed an icy patch on the other side. I went
> down fast and hard. Another pedestrian had seen me fall and asked if I was
> okay. I said yes as I scrambled back up. Then I realized that wasn't going
> to work. They called 911 since my phone was safely on my desk.

Ouch! Yes, those ice patches are treacherous! I have a friend who's now
about 40, and I remember 10 years ago, in spring, he was running to the
bus. In the shadow there was the tiniest 1 or 2 cm remainder of ice that
he didn't see, and managed to hit exactly that spot, and fell and broke
his leg.

In autumn, the leaves on the ground are out to get you, and in winter, the
ice, in spring, it's the stubborn treacherous remains. In summer at least,
we are safe! ;)

That makes me remember in my youth, when I lived in Oslo and in Zürich, in
both cities, I lived at the top of a hill. Those winters were fun trying
to walk to the office, down the hill, with snow and ice, in my office
shoes. Fortunately I have a naturally good balance, so was able to "slide"
down the hill. Getting back after work was quite a challenge though. ;)

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 11:59:17 +0100, D wrote:
>
>
>> But there is this wonderful inflection point, where christianity went
>> from a personal mystic method to find enlightenment, to become a tool to
>> control and build society.
>>
>> I wonder if the mystics lost because of 1. being more interested in the
>> "within" and personal experience than power and 2. the other guys being
>> more interested in power and cared nothing for god, but saw the
>> opportunity. I guess the 3. is St Paul fearing that christianity would
>> split into a 1000 pieces if the mystics with their own individual
>> experiences were allowed to continue.
>
> Other than the Gnostics I don't see much mysticism in early Christianity
> rather than sort of a consoling belief for the lumpen proletariat.
> Constantine was the start of the control.

True.

> Mystics like Ecckhart, John of the Cross, Tauler, Teresa of Avila, and so
> forth were a problem for the hierarchy and treated with suspicion if not
> outright condemned as heretics.

Yes.

> Even in recent times Teilhard de Chardin was ordered not to publish or
> teach his ideas. That's no different than Eckhart who would have been
> ignored if he hadn't tried to teach.

I find it interesting how in our modern and enlightened times (say from
the 1950s and onward) there's been a "merge" with eastern spirituality
where christian writers have "christianized" eastern meditational
practices, and sometimes almost re-invented what the original crew you
mentioned above did several 100 years earlier.

I believe the phenomenon of religion has a common, personal "core", and
that after the original inspired founder was gone, the path to using his
teachings as a way to power starts.

Once it becomes institutionalized, all the deep, meaningful and personal
experiences get lost and you just get the ossified, formalized remains
left.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:10:55 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> I'm no expert, but I'd say the sitting version sounds more "original".
>> As for Watts, I'm always skeptical of those kind of new ages guys, but
>> very often people seem to be huge fans.
>
> The story has several variations but the general theme is Gautama spent 6
> years trying the various New Age techniques with no success until he
> decided to plant himself under the Bodhi tree until he figured it out.

Are you a buddhist or do you subscribe to some form of personal
spirituality? Or is it just an intellectual interest? You seem very
knowledgeable!

> Then came the systemizers and the immense body of Abhidharma literature,
> followed by the different schools arguing over interpretation.
>
> I always had problems with some of those texts. Those people would have
> loved LibreOffice since everything is enumerated lists. I can't reliably
> remember the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Twelve
> Links of Dependent Origination let alone the subgroupings like the Five
> Skahndas.

Yes... it's fascinating when you think about the enormous page count the
buddhists have racked up over the milennia! ;) I cannot but get the
feeling that this is completely antithetical compared with buddhas
original intenetions. ;)

> That's probably why I like Nietzsche; sprawling, self-contradictory, spur
> of the moment aphorisms with no attempt to build a system. That's better
> than Schopenhauer's 'On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient
> Reason' which he claims is the key to understanding The World as Will.

I agree completely! I do like Schopenhauers short philosophical texts
about everyday life (Parerga und paralipomena). Some of them make perfect
sense and are quite approachable.

But his magnum opus I don't agree with at all.

Nietzsche on the other hand, is much better at writing, and although I do
not think that it is just a bunch of random aphorisms, I do believe there
is a theme, they are quite a puzzle to fit together.

Add to that, that his views changed. My favourite is the middle
period Nietzsche who does see the promise in science and rationality.

But another thing I like about Nietzsche, at least for me, is that his
short aphorisms serve as a spring board for me for my own reflections and
philosophy. I find it very inspirational. The anti-christ I also like with
its critique of institutionalized christianity and how damaging it has
been to society.

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:15:59 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Isn't 'in your brain' a dimension?
>
> Not unless you consider various electrochemical processes a dimension.
> There ain't no there there.

I agree.

On 08/12/2024 19:50, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> t drive me nuts when I watch J. Random Luser pointing and clicking and
> pointing and clicking and dragging and dropping and... oops, where did I
> drop that icon? Hold on a minute... And all the time they're proudly
> proclaiming how_easy_ the system is to use, when I could get the job
> done in a dozen keystrokes on a properly-designed system.
>
> --

I never forget installing dial up Internet mail in a lawyers' office,.
They had a SCO Unix server and a legal suite of programs to basically
type legal stuff into, and run diaries and keep track of billable hours,
all running on about 20 Wyse 50 serial terminals. Adminned by one lawyer
in his spare time.

He related gloomily that 'next year the boss wants everyone to have PCs
and I can't manage 20 Windows set ups. It will cost a fortune'

In the City of London apparently a PC/Windows set up was estimated to
cost £3500 per desk per year, in term of hardware and software support,
software and hardware depreciation and admin time.

For so many firms Windows was a massive increase in costs and a massive
reduction in productivity.

And for many others it was simply a way to get a 80x25 screen working
over Ethernet...Ive seen many PCs in use in banks simply running IBM
terminal emulators to good old COBOL based mainframes...

GUIS have their place, but not everywhere.

--
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered...
....than to have answers that cannot be questioned

Richard Feynman

On 08/12/2024 20:49, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 08/12/2024 05:31, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>> On 12/7/24 6:59 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>> On 06/12/2024 17:12, D wrote:
>>>>> If you postulate something which can never be known, it is kind of
>>>>> useless. It goes the same way as god, or a postulated first mover etc.
>>>>
>>>> And yet that is what people do all the time. In fact it is the
>>>> necessary foundation of thinking.
>>>>
>>>> All metaphysics - and we all use it, whether we understand that we
>>>> do or not -  is to assume the framework for our understanding, and
>>>> use it not because it is demonstrably true, but because it *works*
>>>> for us.
>>>>
>>>> We don't  and can't *know* that time and space exist - at least in
>>>> the way we understand them, but they do *work* for us, the way we
>>>> understand them.
>>>
>>>    Careful ... the "luminiferous aether" WORKED - at least
>>>    with the existing physics  :-)
>>>
>> Exactly. That was Karl Poppers point. We don't discover the  laws, we
>> actually make them up, and if they work, we use them.
>
> If you are interested, Bas van Fraassen probably has some interesting
> things to add as well. There was also a german guy who wrote something
> interesting in the 1920s I think on that theme, but for the moment the
> name does not come back to me.
>

> Ahh, here we go!
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_%27As_if%27 .
>
Yes. That is exactly what I meant.

Except more so, He argues that if it works, even if its wrong, its OK.

My point goes further. We can never know for sure if its *right* so the
*only* criteria we can have is that it works.

Which was where Karl Popper came in. He arrived at that point and wanted
to clarify what separated good science from bullshit.

And pseudo scientists have been trying to shout him down ever since

--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

Margaret Thatcher

On 08/12/2024 20:50, D wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> On 08/12/2024 10:48, D wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 07/12/2024 21:48, D wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, 7 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 07/12/2024 16:39, D wrote:
>>>>>>> So therefore, metaphysics doesn't really exist, except as thought
>>>>>>> forms to make us feel better (if we need that), in which case
>>>>>>> it's just a bunch of nice stories.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well you are starting to make clear a completely metaphysical
>>>>>> position here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What do you mean by 'really exist' ?
>>>>>
>>>>> With not exist, I mean s an unprovable, ideal reality separate from
>>>>> the material world.
>>>>
>>>> Ok like the place where 'natural laws' live?
>>>
>>> There is no place where natural laws live, in fact, the laws we know
>>> is just a process in our brains, describing (and predicting) events.
>>> They don't live in any dimension. There is no proof of that.
>>
>> Isn't 'in your brain' a dimension?
>>
>
> Nope. It resides safely and securely in the real world and does not have
> its own dimension where ideal and laws live.

So where does a computer program reside?

--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.

On 08/12/2024 21:13, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 12:04:17 +0100, D wrote:
>
>> Did the second attempt give you enlightenment or a new depth to life?
>> I've never touched any other drugs besides coffee, tea and alcohol, but
>> I did have a spontaneous explosion of love once when I was 15. I've had
>> a few mild echoes of that experience, but never anything close to the
>> strength of it since.
>
> No. I don't remember much of it other than it wasn't a completely
> paranoid experience like the first one.

Many people 'don't remember' . Its cognitive dissonance. The ones that
do, tell an interestng story.

--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.

On 08/12/2024 21:45, rbowman wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 11:59:17 +0100, D wrote:
>
>
>> But there is this wonderful inflection point, where christianity went
>> from a personal mystic method to find enlightenment, to become a tool to
>> control and build society.
>>
>> I wonder if the mystics lost because of 1. being more interested in the
>> "within" and personal experience than power and 2. the other guys being
>> more interested in power and cared nothing for god, but saw the
>> opportunity. I guess the 3. is St Paul fearing that christianity would
>> split into a 1000 pieces if the mystics with their own individual
>> experiences were allowed to continue.
>
> Other than the Gnostics I don't see much mysticism in early Christianity
> rather than sort of a consoling belief for the lumpen proletariat.
> Constantine was the start of the control.
>
You have to dig deep. Essentially in the mediaeval times there were the
proletariat and the Church, playing the game of public morality and
religious bullshit, and the monks and nuns in the monasteries and
nunneries, where real academic discussions took place. William of
Ockham was such a one.

The real mysticism was Jewish - Some of the more esoteric parts of
Judaism were really quite advanced.

I.e. the Kabala and so on, with their attempts to map what appears to be
consciousness itself.

Christian mysticism has always been seen by official religion as
muddying the waters for the simple people. Organised Christian religion
was always, from Paul onwards, a political and social tool.

> Mystics like Ecckhart, John of the Cross, Tauler, Teresa of Avila, and so
> forth were a problem for the hierarchy and treated with suspicion if not
> outright condemned as heretics.
>
Absolutely. If you want to have visions, for Gods sake have them in the
privacy of a monastic cell and dont challenge our authority.

> Even in recent times Teilhard de Chardin was ordered not to publish or
> teach his ideas. That's no different than Eckhart who would have been
> ignored if he hadn't tried to teach.

Yup.

The mysticism was always there, but it was about as popular then as
philosophy is today.

--
Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
But Marxism is the crack cocaine.

On 09/12/2024 09:33, D wrote:
> I believe the phenomenon of religion has a common, personal "core", and
> that after the original inspired founder was gone, the path to using his
> teachings as a way to power starts.
>
> Once it becomes institutionalized, all the deep, meaningful and personal
> experiences get lost and you just get the ossified, formalized remains
> left.

Was Moses a person in divine contact with God, or a very smart and wise
Jew who chipped away on some stone tablets, told the tribes 'these are
Gods Words' and thereby created a morality that allowed laws to be
divine rather than man made?

My knowledge of friends of the Hebrew persuasion suggest to me the
latter. :-)

--
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Jonathan Swift.