Hot news just in from India:
Can't make it up...
Double triggers!!!!
Trump worshiped as God pic.twitter.com/RbQSMjbMIJ— RT (@RT_com) July 2, 2018
Can't make it up...
Double triggers!!!!
36 comments:
Yeah, I saw that. But what strikes up as bizarre is not as off the wall as it may seem.
The rationale is actually quite logical in that world view. Those that are very successful and rise to high positions are deemed to only be able to do so owing to their karma.
It was reflected in China in the emperor's mandate of heaven, and in Japan, the emperor was regarded as actually a divine being, i.e., Shinto god.
Rulers have traditionally been viewed as semi-divine or divine.
That was true even in the West when the great chain of being was the dominant paradigm and this implied the divine right of kings. There are still traces of this among monarchists is Russia.
I’ll never be able to understand this type of behavior....
"Yeah, I saw that. But what strikes up as bizarre is not as off the wall as it may seem.
The rationale is actually quite logical in that world view. Those that are very successful and rise to high positions are deemed to only be able to do so owing to their karma. "
Another theory says that he is the only hope against these cultural leftists open borders cultists globalists.
What do you call the underworld god of productivity killing job guarantees? Tcherneva, i think
Gotta find something for the non-material C students to do....
The rationale is actually quite logical in that world view. Those that are very successful and rise to high positions are deemed to only be able to do so owing to their karma.
That, Tom, and the fact that Trump does resemble a fat, orange cow. So... ;)
Gotta find something for the non-material C students to do....
The irony is that jobs dealing with quantity, including most STEM employment, can be digitized, automated, and robotized a lot more readily than jobs dealing with quality.
Tom I talked to my guy who works in trade education/certifications just yesterday... he is saying that his biggest electrical firm clients are turning away multi-million $ opportunities because they cant get people...
Talked to my storm water management guy a few weeks ago, he said the average age of a licensed surveyor in Maryland here is 57 and it is climbing every year... no young people going into it...
We may be in big trouble brewing...
So JG might divert some of these people into baby sitting or wtf BS jobs for low pay instead of grinding it out to get trained for a better paying job... we might be letting them off the hook...
JG still doesnt address nascent skill shortages... which might be more important in real (material) terms...
In terms of capitalism, the incentives are not attractive enough. Firms need to raise their wage and salary offers and upgrade the benefits.
The response time is delayed may be delayed a bit if enough already skilled people are not attracted. But the more attractive positions will result in people training for them. The length of time depends on the level of qualification.
This is standard econ 101.
“Firms need to raise their wage and salary offers and upgrade the benefits.”
Yup... then the Econ are going to say “inflation!” ... Fed raises interest income dowsing fire with gasoline...
They could lose the handle on this thing....
Learning through failure, apparently.
No they are maintaining the dialectic method where the failure approach is never discarded... so they keep making the same mistakes over... and over... and over...
This is like AA always referring to the Old Testament stuff... he never learns...
Didactic method teaches/learns thru failure as the approach resulting in failure is always immediately discarded..
Their basic problem is with their cognitive methodology...
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you believe in unicorns?
A: No.
Q: Why?
A: Because I've never seen a unicorn.
Q: Do you believe in God?
What drives me crazy about the JG is that Americans view math and technical skills generally as something innate, god given, as if every person isn't born with the capacity. EVERY SINGLE PERSON is capable of slogging through calculus, multivariate calc, differential equations, discrete math, statistics, logic, analysis, e*m/field physics, quantum mechanics and what not. It's just that our school systems and parents don't place value on learning it.
I'm sure it's the same with philosophy and other technical disciplines of language. There is no magic, just work and building skills and ability, practice.
Something like a JG isn't going to fix the deficiencies of the educational system and magically make workers "employable". Sure people at the bottom that have NO skills or are drug addicts or convicts will at least have a chance to do something productive. That is good. But for the majority who don't try very hard and don't make very good decisions, this just makes it easier to fall back into basket weaving, business, gender studies, economics or whatever the worthless, easy-way-out but hot degree is this year.
Not every person is capable of slogging through calculus, multivariate calc, differential equations, discrete math,... etc.
People have different skills, abilities, and interests. Physical labor is the most overlooked ability and easily turns into skilled labor over time. You don't need advanced math to work a shovel, cut hair, frame or plumb a house, etc. White collar thumbs its nose at such "menial" work yet is most often utterly incapable of performing any of that work itself.
He should put that double trigger photo that Matt likes into the picture frame.
No they are maintaining the dialectic method where the failure approach is never discarded... so they keep making the same mistakes over... and over... and over...
This is like AA always referring to the Old Testament stuff... he never learns...
Didactic method teaches/learns thru failure as the approach resulting in failure is always immediately discarded..
Again, misunderstanding dialectic.
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you believe in unicorns?
A: No.
Q: Why?
A: Because I've never seen a unicorn.
Q: Do you believe in God?
Category error.
This is why scientific method can never prove or disprove the existence of "God."
It's a difference not only of scope and scale, but order.
“EVERY SINGLE PERSON is capable”
I think so too, BUT not via current method the academe primarily uses...
I think you have to tailor the method to the individual.... this should start in high school...
I think you have to tailor the method to the individual.... this should start in high school...
Make that pre-school, including day care.
There has to be a balance maintained between individuation and socialization throughout the developmental and educational process, which means it must be dialectical because the processes of individuation and socialization are paradoxical. The paradox is resolved by realizing that the pursuit of individuality and socialization are not antithetical but mutually reinforcing if approached correctly.
This becomes clear in systems thinking, which is based on synergy — the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Then the basis of society is realized as the pursuit of the good life for each individual in the context of a good society. This has to be a concrete and dynamic process in a complex adaptive system in which seizing opportunities generates emerging challenges. It's win-win for all, both individually and collectively.
This requires revisiting the educational process and overhauling it.
In fact, if this were accomplished successfully, humanity would be close to generating naturally spontaneous order that automatically optimizes. That requires an advanced level of collective consciousness and there is no good reason to prevent that from being attained progressively if the right conditions are created. (Disclosure: I wrote an MA on this in the early Seventies.)
In fact, this approach to education is foundational to the liberal POV in its most developed form, not limited to or by bourgeois liberalism. The wise among ancient peoples realized this. So it is also traditional.
"Category error."
Ontology is not a category error. Belief systems are based on logical errors.
Sorry but a unicorn is a possible physical object with no evidence for actual existence and a lot of reasons to think that unicorns are fictional, that is, imaginary objects.
God may be conceived as a physical object but there are very few conceptual models in which that is the case other than in highly anthropomorphic ones. In most conceptual models, "God" is not an object, physical or non-physical.
Conceptual models are suppositional. The degree to which they may be representational is a matter of experience and experience is not exclusively sensible.
Conceptual models held to be representational but without corresponding experience are opinions or beliefs, or fictional. Novels are constitute a type of conceptual model. Some novels, e.g., historical novels, may be partly representational and partly fictional.
Some such models are believed to be the case based on the authority of those that have claimed to have experienced the corresponding reality. Religious models are often of this type, for instance.
Then the question becomes one of assessing the authority. In such cases, the criteria are often in question, or the question is over whether the putative authority meets the criteria.
God is a possible physical object with no evidence for actual existence and a lot of reasons to think that God is fictional, that is, an imaginary object (a lovely oxymoron!).
A unicorn may be conceived as a physical object.
Sorry, Tom. Word salad, at least for me. I'm a simple man, interested in the (seemingly obvious) failed logical of belief systems.
Ryan Harris:Something like a JG isn't going to fix the deficiencies of the educational system and magically make workers "employable".
No, it surely will. That's the way it worked in the past, in the New Deal, WWII and the postwar era, in the US and elsewhere. The national decision for full employment has enormous ripple effects.
What the JG has to do with math and technical skills in particular, why it can drive you crazy, I do not see. Of course teaching (or to some degree, learning) those things would be a possible JG job - I've taught most of those subjects, and would be happy to do so under JG auspices. The focus on STEM and complaints (drivel) about skills shortages are just the private sector trying to get disposable workers cheap, educated at public expense. Almost everyone is capable of playing a musical instrument. Should everyone be forced to do that too? Why? The basic high school level of math is enough to require of everyone. Almost everyone could do more, but the way to get more people into it is to think it and explain it gooder, not to impose requirements.
But for the majority who don't try very hard and don't make very good decisions, this just makes it easier to fall back into basket weaving, business, gender studies, economics or whatever the worthless, easy-way-out but hot degree is this year.
This personalization of national economic problems has no truth. IMHO today's young people are trying harder than ever and making better decisions than the past few generations. But this is to little avail overall, because the system is rigged against them, again by comparison with the postwar era and even the early neoliberal era. Pandering to the welfare queens of "private enterprise" (private government is more like it) whatever they decide is "hot" at the moment ( of course decisively influenced by the national government's spending priorities) is a pointless wild goose chase.
I agree that there is no magic, but making the very good decision to put hard work into understanding well-reasoned economics = MMT leads to appreciating the enormous merits of the JG (I damn well do call it a panacea) IMHO the MMT thinkers do not always explain things the best way. So what? Who does?
@ Noah Way
From your response it seems you are a materialist that has dismissed all God-talk as meaningless based on the boundaries of a chosen worldview founded on a metaphysical assumption (materialism) or have confused a methodological assumption (naturalism with an ontological one. This view is called scientism.
The other view is naive realism or the "commonsense" view of the world that assumes if it can't be seen it doesn't exist.
However, there is a long history to this and it is is foundational to most worldviews. I study this field as it appears to me that a naive response is like asserting that QM is BS while being ignorant of higher math and physics.
There many different positions on these issues, not only in the various religions but also the not specifically religious wisdom traditions.
These can be viewed in different ways.
1. Basic POVs
Atheism - agnosticism - gnosticism.
2. Meaning
Kataphatic (use of analogy and superlative)- apophatic (denial of limitation).
3. Models
a. Anthropomorphic - perfect man (Krishna in Bhagavad Gita, Son of Man in Book of Daniel)
b. Ontological - highest order of being - (the great chain of being)
c. Mystical - mystery only revealed in experience
4. Transcendent - immanent - both immanent and transcendent
5. God of the philosophers (absolute) - God of our fathers (person)
6. God of mythology (narratives with many level of symbolism and significance) - God of philosophy (conceptual models) - God of the mystics (testimony of experience)
It should also be recognized that the English "God" is a Western term that stems from the Near East and was combined with Greek thought subsequently. So this is a geographically and historically narrow term and its meaning in the world debate should not be taken as a universal criterion.
Anyway, those that understand this debate and its history would view lumping "God" with unicorns" as a category error indicative of someone that is outside of the debate and not knowledgeable of the issues or how they are dealt with from various perspectives.
There are actually many atheists in the debate and they offer sophisticated arguments for their positions on various issues.
IN the end, none of the arguments for and against or for various positions are compelling enough to command universal assent. So this has been one of the enduring questions, except for those who claim to know by experience (gnostics). But since experience is subjective, the claim rests on authority for others.
BTW, this is not only a matter of religious belief, philosophical and theological inquiry, and mystical experience. It is also treated as scientifically as possible in psychology, sociology and anthropology.
I would say one final thing. I began as a believer (raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. I became an atheist in college. Later, after studying philosophy I realized that this was a deeper matter than I had thought and it required deep thinking and contemplation. That led to mystical experience and so I chose to explore that avenue, seeking to learn from those that already knew the way in order to test the teaching in the "laboratory" of experience.
The Road Not Taken
Interestingly, I had written a paper on Robert Frost's n in high school and at that time decided to walk the less-travelled path.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
"Interestingly, I had written a paper on Robert Frost's n..." should read, "Interestingly, I had written a paper on Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken in high school and at that time decided to walk the less-travelled path."
Not a materialist, if anything I am more of a Buddhist than anything else as the teachings are in line with my experience. Definitely not scientism, although I find it interesting that modern science is discovering things that Buddhism has been teaching for millennia such as "everything is connected". If asked to chose among the choices offered I would opt for transcendent.
Typed on a ridiculously small iPhone under the transcendent influence of a very nice tequila.
There are different varieties of Buddhism, but generally speaking, bodhi would be categorized as gnostic, apophatic, mystical, and transcendent and immanent. Bodhi is not to be realized by adding anything but rather by "turning on the light" that dispels the darkness of ignorance. The light switch is transmission, although ripeness develops gradually, partially dispelling the darkness. So there is gradual enlightenment that culminates in sudden enlightenment as realization of emptiness in the state of nirvana. Nirvana means to blow out or extinguish. Nirvana is the extinguishing of limitation of individual mind.
Buddha argued neither for not against the existence of "God" in the sense prevalent at the time, but rather he argued against contemporary conceptions of deity as unhelpful in the realizing bodhi. It would not be correct to call Buddha either atheistic or agnostic, since he claimed to be a gnostic himself but did not talk about this realization other than by denial of the real existence of anything but "emptiness." That is the full and final experience of "pure consciousness" as being awake.
Bodhi is usually translated into English as "enlightenment" but it simply means "awakening," being from the root budh meaning to awaken. Budh also means to know and to perceive, so it implies being a gnostic (ultimate knower, knower of the highest order). Since budh also implies to perceive, it also implies direct, experiential, unmediated knowledge.
In addition, Shakymuni Buddha and all other Buddhas fit the "perfect man" model. See Trikaya.
Trikaya, (Sanskrit: “three bodies”), in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the concept of the three bodies, or modes of being, of the Buddha:
the dharmakaya (body of essence), the unmanifested mode, and the supreme state of absolute knowledge;
the sambhogakaya (body of enjoyment), the heavenly mode;
and the nirmanakaya (body of transformation), the earthly mode, the Buddha as he appeared on earth or manifested himself in an earthly bodhisattva, an earthly king, a painting, or a natural object, such as a lotus.
The concept of trikaya applies not only to the historical Buddha, Gautama, but to all other buddhas as well.
Buddhist teaching is highly developed and fits into the scheme I gave above as well as being a high-level expression of perennial wisdom. The model is difficult for many to grasp intellectually, however, in that it is dialectical, proceeding toward the whole by denying falsity. But Buddha and the Buddhist masters have emphasized practice rather than intellectual understanding. Unfortunately, many get bogged down in understanding an argument. See the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow.
Pulling out the arrow reeks of materialism.
Right, but what does the arrow symbolize? In Buddha's analysis, it represents the cause of suffering the second of the four noble truths, the first of which is suffering. The third is the cessation of suffering by removing the cause. The fourth noble truth is the eight-fold path for doing so.
Suffering starts with identification with the mind-body and ceases with that removal of that identification though realization of one's true nature as not-self. This involves realization of the insubstantiality of that which changes. That is, one begins by taking the material body and world as reality and comes to realize that this is not the truth as the whole.
What Buddha is saying is rather than getting involved in intellectual conundrum with oneself and intellectual disputations with others, practice the eight-fold path in order to remove the "arrow" and permanently put an end to suffering.
Buddha's teaching, being apophatic, is the negative pole perspectively, and it is complemented by the positive pole expressed affirmatively but analogously rather than descriptively.
For example, in God Speaks, Meher Baba provided an account (conceptual model) of the ten states of experience of God (infinite consciousness). God as infinite consciousness is realized as the sole reality that appears differently in different states depending on the levels of consciousness that underly different levels of experience.
At the conclusion he writes:
God cannot be explained, He cannot be argued about, He cannot be theorized, nor can He be discussed and understood. God can only be lived.
Nevertheless, all that is said here and explained about God to appease the intellectual convulsions of the mind of man, still lacks many more words and further explanations because the TRUTH is that the Reality must be realized and the divinity of God must be attained and lived.
To understand the infinite, eternal Reality is not the GOAL of individualized beings in the Illusion of Creation, because the Reality can never be understood; it is to be realized by conscious experience.
Therefore, the GOAL is to realize the Reality and attain the "I am God" state in human form.
Meher Baba
God Speaks
Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented, p. 202
This is substantially what Buddha says too, but from the complementary pole of negation in contrast to affirmation.
This type of intellectual exercise is not for everyone, and fortunately it is not necessary. Both the affirmative and negative poles meet in agreement that intellectual understanding is insufficient for realization and must be transcended.
Many of the wise across the ages were unlearned and illiterate to begin with. But they ended up becoming omniscient.
"Love is all you need." It doesn't get any simpler than that. Being the great unifier, love is the driver of the dialectic that marches toward realization of the whole.
Not that intellectual pursuits are a waste of time though. Love of truth is also a key piece in the dialectic that leads to love unconditional and unconditioned.
Therefore, the paradoxical saying, "It is aways reasonable to go beyond reason to love."
We are in near-perfect agreement. God as a metaphor is dangerous when externalized.
Right. All wisdom traditions contain that in their apophatic teaching, and affirmative teachings also emphasize that they are based on analogy that is not asserted as being an exact correlate of the object likened to. Thus, analogies are complemented by negation.
There is, however, a tendency to take models literally and confuse them with the reality to which they point and which is only knowable as such through experience.
As a result confusion abounds.
This is an issue with literalism, for example, as well as selective reading.
Moreover, few people are able to hold complementary models.
Al-'Arabi, who Sufis call the greatest sheikh (al-sheikh al-akbar) and is comparable to Shankara in Advaita Vedanta, said the following:
Beware of becoming delimited by a specific knotting and disbelieving in everything else, lest great good escape you.... Be in yourself a matter for the forms of all beliefs, for God is wider and more tremendous than that He should be constricted by one knotting rather than another.
Muhyi-al-Din ibn al-'Arabi
Bezels of Wisdom, 113
He who counsels his own soul should investigate, during his life in this world, all doctrines concerning God. He should learn from whence each possessor of a doctrine affirms the validity of his doctrine. Once its validity has been affirmed for him in the specific mode in which it is correct for him who holds it, then he should support it in the case of him who believes in it.
Muhyi-al-Din ibn al-'Arabi
Meccan Openings, II. 85.11
in William Chittick
Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-'Arabi and the Problem of Religious Diversity
NY: SUNY, 1994, p. 176
Al-'Arabi was a Buddhist. Just replace 'God' with 'Buddha'.
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