RE: Asgard and Archaea
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The desire for quantification and testing is, in my opinion, due to the fact that people are reluctant to accept something like uncertainty.
Instead, they want to gain certainty. There is no certainty about this, about consciousness, only something else. But if people do not want to let go of gaining certainty, they will take all possible steps to turn something uncertain into something certain. It may seem that I am in favour of such scientific experiments to prove that "paranormal abilities" exist, for example. I wouldn't put it that way at all, rather I would say that humans can train abilities that are already inherent in them, therefore not para- but "normal". One just doesn't have a particular focus on them.
Whoever gets the impression from the so-called materialists that everything in the universe merely moves by means of blunt physical laws, that there is nothing of consciousness or intelligence to be found in it, probably experiences a narcissistic affront to his world view and wants to stand up against it.
He feels deprived of wonder, the effect of "deep awe!".
Now he wants to counter it by means of the scientific methods that the materialists leave open to him as the only path of discovery they accept. One could call it a clever move that the scientific method exerts a certain compulsion on all those who resist the destruction of their world view to use it (the scientific method) as a counter-evidence. Probably in the knowledge that such a rebuttal can never be achieved.
I wouldn't call it that and I don't see myself as being on one side or the other. Rather, I have this ambiguity in mind, the realisation that this strongly opposing world view reflects a current that appears in many places. A kind of perpetual ping-pong between the forces that fight each other but are mutually dependent. I see the dilemma, I am caught up in it myself in parts, but I can also take a position outside of it or find other interpretations interesting and accept them to some extent.
In the end, I'm not really dogged by seeing scientific experiments popping up all over the place that target abilities related to consciousness, they might as well be ghosts I called and had to regret afterwards.
I talk to "my microbes" occasionally as well as to my plants and I am sure, the cat knows more. I trust, I will be understood. HaHa! ;-)
Nescience gets people killed. Science produces significant benefits demonstrably preferred by people. However, it is also demonstrable that no matter how reasonable and knowledgeable people are, they all die. Since learning takes time, we are constrained in our quest for knowledge by our need to live, regardless of what we know or don't know. This produces a range of strategies culturally and individually selected that cause a range of rationality and understanding to be affected individually.
Insofar as I can ascertain, these things will not change in the foreseeable future, and I am left with the distinct acknowledgement that one man's poison is another's treasure. While I feel obligated to respect other's choices, it is obvious that I consider my own optimal, and it is this conceit I seek to blunt increasingly as I approach death, as I am ever more confident I should be more humble. It is obviously paradoxical to be confident in one's humility, and Ben Franklin, who strove to exemplify what he considered to be the seven signal virtues, once wrote to his son that he had quite given up on humility, as he was certain he would be proud of achieving it if he ever did.
HaHa! That gave me a good chuckle, thanx!
Indeed, a similar insight is also spread amongst the buddhist philosophers, where it is said that if you want to get rid of desire, this in itself is a desire and so one wants to get rid of the desire of not desiring.
But as being humbled is nothing one would be proud of, just humble, I bet, Franklin wrote it with a twinkling eye.
To the rest of your response, I answer you with a quote from the book I gave you the link for:
I am convinced that whole we perceive is false. Such meaning as it has to us is what we seek to justify in our self-deception.
We are demonstrably incapable of total understanding. Any presumption we make to it is false. Plato ascribed to Aristotle the statement that he knew he knew nothing, and since existence is an emergent event, partial understanding is indeed no understanding, because only complete understanding enables comprehension of emergence.
Because of this I doubt I can ever be humble enough. I hope it is enough that I try, because that is all I can do.
You take it way too literally. If you read a poem, you understand it, yet if you would want to write down your understanding of it, you'll fail greatly. Because the understanding does find itself between the lines, between what is expressed at its best but still cannot be expressed any further.
What you feel deep down in your guts, when you step out into the night sky and look up, that is where you have this feeling of understanding, of something true. But when you go back inside and you would want to share your experience with your neighbor or wife, you couldn't. It would sound weak, compared to the moment of looking into the stars.
Yeah, I agree, I cannot see you humble in this regard.