Susan Blackmore and Jordan Peterson
Came across a youtube video featuring a talk show featuring Jordan Peterson vs Susan Blackmore, and I strictly feel the 'vs' is superfluous here, because both these people are scientific, and rational.
It's as surprisingly rare combination these days, and when you throw in well-spoken, it's amazing. Going by the thumb rule -, whenever you see something new, it means the wave has tipped , and that many others will be seeing too. So I expect a new wave of rational, scientific and well-spoken literary people dominating the zeitgeist soon.
Jordan Peterson is the second person whole intellectual work strikes me as very true and apt, who is religious. The first was McLuhan, whose every sentence rings so true that even after I read any of his quotes on wikiquote, I'm left with a feeling that I'm not doing enough to propagate his words . And he was a devout Catholic. Jim Rohn referred to his 2 hr seminar as 'fundamentals, because the ideas stem from the Bible'. Kevin Kelly also recommends the same. Jordan Peterson calls the Bible to have 'narrative truth'. Merton's Chuang Tzu is also very accessible, and the quotes on fasting were very hard-hitting for me. However, I fear he finds Christianity in Taoism and Zen, rather than finding just Taoism and Zen.
Should we aim to be the stinktree of Chuang Tzu ? Ajahn Brahm ,in his many talks that have accompanied my drives - refers to damaged trees in the woods and says that only these are beautiful. Pema Chodron says - trying to improve and get better is a subtle aggression against the self .
The lotus grows out of mud, and being an IT worker, that is my mud. Hence it is only normal that I see consciousness as a large complex computer program processing its own debug output.
To use a non-computer analogy, I will use writing, because there is there is a lot of writing on blogs and such about how computer programming comes closest to writing. We can debate that another day.
To use an analogy that doesn't involve computers, imagine that you've hired a writer to write a large essay on current events , but you have only limited access to him, or his writing - let's say he sends partially complete drafts a.k.a drafts by post ( snail mail), and fails to do so sometimes. Since you have an idea what the final essay looks like - it touches this location, that group, that recipe, that invention etc you keep a list of key points on a slip of paper, and read through the reports and do a bit of course correction here and there. In this analogy, the essay being written is reality, the drafts you get are the snapshots your senses take now and then, and the list of points in your hand is your course plotted on your map*, or your mental model of how reality should be - whether the writing follows grammar rules, has analogies, anecdotes, whether it references or includes scientific data , whether the writing is flowery and has flourishes, whether you insist on a typewriter or a fountain pen or a ball-point pen, in cursive or italic - these are your conventions - religious, optimized for profit, convenient, ordered from above etc.
Your map gets formed as you go on, and your course also changes accordingly with new information - young blood blazes a course through much changes of employment fueled by the winds of youth, ideals and raw energy, coming of middle age charts a slow course through a suburban house and steady job, education helps form new friends or enemies - etc
Mental illness is when you don't open your mail, write your own essay ,and then dismiss it as lacking. Anxiety could be not receiving mail for a couple of periods, or not opening your mail for a couple of periods, and losing touch with the essay being written.
An entity is only known through its differences from other entities. Hence dependent arising of identity. Buddha rocks !
The null, from which everything deviates = Brahman. That from which nothing can deviate = Tao. Hmm.. if the null is the core of everything, both are equivalent ?
This is a very large post and I haven't seen the video yet. Waities.
Saw some more of the video - quite an interesting debate - I find myself agreeing with both of them at all times even though they are on opposite sides.
JP says : you write papers because they make you think
It's as surprisingly rare combination these days, and when you throw in well-spoken, it's amazing. Going by the thumb rule -, whenever you see something new, it means the wave has tipped , and that many others will be seeing too. So I expect a new wave of rational, scientific and well-spoken literary people dominating the zeitgeist soon.
Jordan Peterson is the second person whole intellectual work strikes me as very true and apt, who is religious. The first was McLuhan, whose every sentence rings so true that even after I read any of his quotes on wikiquote, I'm left with a feeling that I'm not doing enough to propagate his words . And he was a devout Catholic. Jim Rohn referred to his 2 hr seminar as 'fundamentals, because the ideas stem from the Bible'. Kevin Kelly also recommends the same. Jordan Peterson calls the Bible to have 'narrative truth'. Merton's Chuang Tzu is also very accessible, and the quotes on fasting were very hard-hitting for me. However, I fear he finds Christianity in Taoism and Zen, rather than finding just Taoism and Zen.
Should we aim to be the stinktree of Chuang Tzu ? Ajahn Brahm ,in his many talks that have accompanied my drives - refers to damaged trees in the woods and says that only these are beautiful. Pema Chodron says - trying to improve and get better is a subtle aggression against the self .
The lotus grows out of mud, and being an IT worker, that is my mud. Hence it is only normal that I see consciousness as a large complex computer program processing its own debug output.
To use a non-computer analogy, I will use writing, because there is there is a lot of writing on blogs and such about how computer programming comes closest to writing. We can debate that another day.
To use an analogy that doesn't involve computers, imagine that you've hired a writer to write a large essay on current events , but you have only limited access to him, or his writing - let's say he sends partially complete drafts a.k.a drafts by post ( snail mail), and fails to do so sometimes. Since you have an idea what the final essay looks like - it touches this location, that group, that recipe, that invention etc you keep a list of key points on a slip of paper, and read through the reports and do a bit of course correction here and there. In this analogy, the essay being written is reality, the drafts you get are the snapshots your senses take now and then, and the list of points in your hand is your course plotted on your map*, or your mental model of how reality should be - whether the writing follows grammar rules, has analogies, anecdotes, whether it references or includes scientific data , whether the writing is flowery and has flourishes, whether you insist on a typewriter or a fountain pen or a ball-point pen, in cursive or italic - these are your conventions - religious, optimized for profit, convenient, ordered from above etc.
Your map gets formed as you go on, and your course also changes accordingly with new information - young blood blazes a course through much changes of employment fueled by the winds of youth, ideals and raw energy, coming of middle age charts a slow course through a suburban house and steady job, education helps form new friends or enemies - etc
Mental illness is when you don't open your mail, write your own essay ,and then dismiss it as lacking. Anxiety could be not receiving mail for a couple of periods, or not opening your mail for a couple of periods, and losing touch with the essay being written.
An entity is only known through its differences from other entities. Hence dependent arising of identity. Buddha rocks !
The null, from which everything deviates = Brahman. That from which nothing can deviate = Tao. Hmm.. if the null is the core of everything, both are equivalent ?
This is a very large post and I haven't seen the video yet. Waities.
Saw some more of the video - quite an interesting debate - I find myself agreeing with both of them at all times even though they are on opposite sides.
JP says : you write papers because they make you think
posted by goingkiloer at Monday, December 24, 2018
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