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The video is bad because there's no science, no testable theory.... it's just someone drawing lines between the dots at their leisure, with nothing to back it up, holding an extremely arrogant position (where does she consider that she might be wrong about how to approach being wrong?). It's like a motivational speech or something.

This comment is much better. And yes, I agree that it's a motivational speech. I like those. See below:

http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/tecmosuperbowl/64761-Inspiration

A video doesn't have to include a scientific theory/law/whatever to produce a positive effect or get you to think about something in a different way.

I really really really dislike the pseudo science typically presented in motivational speaking, and I have to be skeptic to if motivational speakers actually help anyone who wouldn't have helped themselves just as well on their own.

I also have to wonder if motivational speakers actually hurt a lot of people. The simple one sided arguments(?) they present could be really hurtful to someone who might need professional help, like medicine or other forms of treatment.

Videos like the ones on my blog and the Ted talk inspire me to do various things, whether that is keep an open mind, hit the gym, or help someone. So wonder no more Sure, I might have hit the gym eventually, but watching X video might get me to go TONIGHT.

To generalize all motivational videos into one category though likely isn't fair. You're probably right that some portion of the people watching X video might perceive it incorrectly. I don't fault the producer of the video for someone misinterpreting said video though.

I also think we are likely talking about two completely different subsets of videos (which is why generalizing them doesn't work). I'm more on the "Jordan highlights" spectrum, whereas you seem to be more on the "listen to me (and pay me) and I'll improve your life" end.

Videos like the ones on my blog and the Ted talk inspire me to do various things, whether that is keep an open mind, hit the gym, or help someone. So wonder no more Sure, I might have hit the gym eventually, but watching X video might get me to go TONIGHT.

Hookay. Scientific evidence up in this bitch. Guess it's sorted.

EDIT: Come play me @pshomegame?

Hookay. Scientific evidence up in this bitch. Guess it's sorted.

EDIT: Come play me @pshomegame?

Will be on later. Heading out to dinner w/ the gf. Will def play if you're still on

anyone here tried psilocybin?
Scientific experiments in america showed that a significant number of participants had a religious experience.

maybe if you really wanna know what this means (a spiritual experience blah blah blah) you should try this?

I'm not some hippy promoting drugs, far from it, but so far this is the only scientifically acknowledged observation of a religious experience.

How do the atheists feel about this?

I don't know that I'd classify myself as an atheist, but I do doubt that there's a god in any anthropomorphic sense. I've also done psilocybin/psylocin in college, and while it was a lot of fun and definitely made a lot of things feel profoundly significant, I don't think I'd classify it as a religious experience. Recalling my thoughts on the days after, it would always turn out that the drug had simply rendered me easily amazed. But hey, it was enjoyable anyway, and I got a lot of exercise when tripping, since I felt compelled to see everything.

This should be required viewing for every debate:

http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

"If you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, 'Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.'"

Tecmo,

i find this talk incredibly ego smashing. and i think that's great!

but if we did all just say "maybe i'm wrong," what would we talk about? what would we know? how could we act if we were always feeling that we might be wrong? maybe having a false sense of rightness is necessary for life itself.

as a simple example, how could i kill and eat another living creature if i doubted whether my existence or "belief in my own importance" than that which i'm about to eat? (don't want this to turn into a vegan debate, but plants are alive too).

.................
but if we did all just say "maybe i'm wrong," what would we talk about? what would we know? how could we act if we were always feeling that we might be wrong? maybe having a false sense of rightness is necessary for life itself. ..........

Well, then you would be like me grasping (ready to beg) to NOT be wrong just one time.

Just trying to laugh at my horrendous week of DC forum posting. Awful week, and it isn't over yet.
oh wait. Clue. Religion and Politics.

Poker "beliefs" don't really fall in the same category. I see them as different because they're tangible things that can be tested. It may take a very long period to find out if X is correct, etc. Even the most hypothetical concept in poker is within an confined environment we all understand and can manipulate and test. E.g. The cards and rules.

Beliefs related to spirituality, etc, don't exist within an environment where they can be tested and evaluated.

I'm sure we could debate what constitutes a belief that can be debated and one that can't all day. So It's probably not the best example but hopefully it clears up what I meant.

bjordan,

but there's a psychological component to poker as well. we have to use logic to work out way through a lot of spots. there are poker unknowns because of incomplete information.

i see a similarity between belief in religious ideas and poker situations because sometimes we either crunch through probabilities for the unknown, or else disregard the unknown because it would be irrational to make some decision like "i just sat, this guy went all in, i'll call cause he might be bluffing." that would be irrational. there is no basis for that belief. and yet people do it all the time cause they've been losing and they just want to win a pot.

and it's not about math to get someone to not do that. it's about logic.

Has anyone read Sophies World (1994) ?
Book is way better than the movie (of course).

I found the book to be a fun way to learn about the different philosophies (hated the course in college. boring professor). The one philosophy (by some famous philosopher) which really intrigued me was the one where........We are NOT real in the physical sense. We are the invention in someone else's mind. Someone has created us and our world -- in their imagination (a god or person). We are just a dream or imagination.

NOW to weave that into the current posts
---- what if that person (god) was on drugs one night? Just kidding.
---- where did that person or god come from?


NOTE: I'm not joking about this "philosophy". Seems to me it was within the last 100 years.
I am not even sure how to search for it. Keywords anyone?



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Has anyone read Sophies World (1994) ?
Book is way better than the movie (of course).

I found the book to be a fun way to learn about the different philosophies (hated the course in college. boring professor). The one philosophy (by some famous philosopher) which really intrigued me was the one where........We are NOT real in the physical sense. We are the invention in someone else's mind. Someone has created us and our world -- in their imagination (a god or person). We are just a dream or imagination.

NOW to weave that into the current posts
---- what if that person (god) was on drugs one night?
---- where did that person or god come from?


NOTE: I'm not joking about this "philosophy". Seems to me it was within the last 100 years.
I am not even sure how to search for it. Keywords anyone?



.

This is basically existential skepticism. The Matrix was a good movie but it only scratched the surface of this interesting philosophy. Look up 'Brains in a Vat-Hilary Putnam' for a good introduction to this.

On a side note, there is scientific theory that something similar to this may actually be the case. Look up the 'Holographic Principle.'

re-reading my posts i think i might have come across as pro-God.
Not at all - quite the opposite.
Juss sayin' we all need to try and see where the other folk are coming from.
IF you want to see/feel what people who have close, personal experiences of God then this can be induced artificially.

@smershbloke I actually find this area of inquiry pretty interesting, but from the opposite side... inducing some sort of experience chemically that a person would refer to as a religious experience really pulls the carpet out from under non-chemically-induced religious experiences by pointing out that they're much much much much more likely to be the simple result of brain chemistry.

St Paul, for example, was almost certainly a serious but obviously undiagnosed schizophrenic.

The vegetarian or not debate is kinda cool, because it proved to me that I don't really care about being moral.

Well, then you would be like me grasping (ready to beg) to NOT be wrong just one time.

Just trying to laugh at my horrendous week of DC forum posting. Awful week, and it isn't over yet.
oh wait. Clue. Religion and Politics.

Sneakers, without struggle there is no progress? fight the good fight. i don't hate you for believing in what you do. i just don't agree with some of it.

that "Wrong" video is in my head! Tecmo, it's working!

This is basically existential skepticism. The Matrix was a good movie but it only scratched the surface of this interesting philosophy. Look up 'Brains in a Vat-Hilary Putnam' for a good introduction to this.

On a side note, there is scientific theory that something similar to this may actually be the case. Look up the 'Holographic Principle.'

The Matrix definitely did create an imaginary and interactive world, but there were still physical bodies being manipulated.

I am guessing this is the right track "existential skepticism", and believe it or not, there apparently is a divide in this also -- between atheists and theists. I am still researching.
The book put it so simple in story form (of course Sophie was a child). Wiki is very wordy (zzzzzz)

Yeah, I even remember the story having a couple of twists. Like Sophie finds out that she is not real, she is just a character in the book someone wrote (Sophie's World) .....but she thought she was real up until that moment......and of course, her life does not continue UNLESS WE (the readers) are reading the book. (yeah, confusing like the matrix)

EDIT: So, I think I found the philosophers: George Berkeley, and also Hume and Bjerkely.

Really interesting book. Here are the Spark Notes (like cliff notes) for the book, Sophie's World.



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