The Crisis of Meaning

[noddy]

chasing after the latest statistics and living in fear of them is a different way of life to following religous practice, their is no doubt.

then again, their is a certain segment of the religious community which hangs off the latest proclamtions ( muslims its hadiths?) too.

and a certain segment which mumbles about human fallibity in church officials and ignores them.

zooming out, zooming in, its all matters of perspective.

There aren't perspectives; that is the problem. We often lack the tests to cut back on tautologies and circular reasonings. On paper, a critical eye does us well but matters aren't lived on paper and things get messy, especially when there is a lot of unpack.

The statistician is supposed to be searching for functional relations. The religious community is stating a self-expression. How would these two relate?

I used to think like that - science and religion are different subjects, its all just daftness.

but years of arguing here, and watching changes in the politics around me IRL, I no longer feel that way.

its all about authority - everything, all the time, reduces to that - who has it, how do they argue it, how do they proclaim it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I'm not trying to make some sort of argument for a collection of realms here and there and never the twain shall meet.

It may very well reduce to authority and how that is argued which is why its important to point out the uncritical tests we put them too and that standards the proclaim for themselves.

I wouldn't necessarily call the statistician a scientist but I also think it not right reduce him to another religious figure- whatever that means.

At the same time, I'm not going to toss proclamations (which is so Christian coded in generality) and dismiss the possibility of a living oracle or concede some sort of pretend junior partnership to the arrangement. I think it perfectly right for the church to insist on authority over her own members. It is not necessarily an authority that goes farther than that and attempts often lead to very bad outcomes for everyone.

And just as often as the religious overstep that boundary-- and it a common occurrence, in waves-- the converse is true often enough as well. Secular power and the ambitious cannot stand another corporate body with authority.

[noddy]

stats is all their is in the humanist world - morality and culture are allowed to exist aslong as they can be justified with stats, or arent challenged by stats.

religious or atheist or indifferent, the only game in town is arguing the stats, if you cant find the stat to make the point, you cant make a point.

so its not so much the statistician is elevated to priest, its just that the priest is only capable of arguing with the secular authority if a statistician can find the right entrail reading for them to use.

[noddy]

back , in a circular way, to the topic.

I wonder how much the modern crisis thing is related to change coming too fast, too often.

Im hearing all sorts of theories, conservative, progressive, traditional, modern, but on many levels, all are suffering for modernity, their are as many counter examples as examples for all of the claims.

doesnt matter what you believe, its constantly unstable against the next big thing - we are in a state of flux in a manner which I dont think has come before.

kind of like the isolated primitive tribes that just gave up upon contact with civilisation, unable to connect the dots on how to get from here to there - thats affecting all aspects of society now.

[Typhoon]

back , in a circular way, to the topic.

I wonder how much the modern crisis thing is related to change coming too fast, too often.

Im hearing all sorts of theories, conservative, progressive, traditional, modern, but on many levels, all are suffering for modernity, their are as many counter examples as examples for all of the claims.

doesnt matter what you believe, its constantly unstable against the next big thing - we are in a state of flux in a manner which I dont think has come before.

kind of like the isolated primitive tribes that just gave up upon contact with civilisation, unable to connect the dots on how to get from here to there - thats affecting all aspects of society now.

Future_shock.png (158.5 KiB) Viewed 91753 times

[Nonc Hilaire]

This might be a good time to re-read “Future Shock”.

Toffler’s prediction of everyone reading poetry echoes our shortened attention spans and rap.

His prediction of our reducing everything to acronyms was spot-on.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

stats is all their is in the humanist world - morality and culture are allowed to exist aslong as they can be justified with stats, or arent challenged by stats.

religious or atheist or indifferent, the only game in town is arguing the stats, if you cant find the stat to make the point, you cant make a point.

so its not so much the statistician is elevated to priest, its just that the priest is only capable of arguing with the secular authority if a statistician can find the right entrail reading for them to use.

An argument, as pointed out at the end, is that it's casting lots dressed up as statistics (and measurements).

[Parodite]

Future Shock is a crisis in and of itself. Hard to keep up. I'm not sure religion suffers much though. The metaphysical is tolerant of past, present and future and especially grows well on existential threats and stress overload. In some form or other.

Accelerated change adds broken dreams with a future harder to predict. Disillusionment and no assumption is free of charge. Shouldn't democracy, human rights, small government and the free market have solved most of our problems by now?

Seems to me next on the chopping block will be the globalizing free market. Communism has expired as a viable answer but centralized institutions, managerial and financial monopolies are growing everywhere. The libertarian instinct that government easily grows into a cancerous monster is a good one but has forgotten to pay attention to non-gvt monopolies that also emerge and become equally hideous and corrupting.

I remember Mr.P. expressing the opinion that it is always and only gvt interference that corrupts. If the free market is really left alone... no other corrupting monopolies will emerge. All will be fine. To me this sounds as naive as believing Communism will eventually work and that it failed only "because it was never really tried".

Economic freedom as a religious belief is coming to an end. People not only want to control their own territorial borders and have a democratic say on immigration policies, they will also start to question if businesses should have a default right to do business with anyone they want for the best price.

Examples are China, Meddle East and Russia. The globalized free market has made us dependent for our energy supplies on Mobster Russia and on some Meddle East Donkey States, for pharmaceuticals and tech parts on China. This makes our Western societies very vulnerable, as it turns out.

The business class elites always had a free pass doing whatever they want: that might be over soon.

Extra fuel is the moral-ethical question: should voters have a say on the limits of free market enterprise? I would vote in favor of completely disengaging from China, Russia, Iran and all Meddle East oil to make the Western Anglosphere completely self-sufficient. There is no universal law of nature that compels us to do business with every not-trustworthy crook and murderous a-hole just because the price is better. Unfortunately, the free-market fundamentalists and globalist whores with their religious beliefs are everywhere.

An exceptional set of brains is not a guarantee to stay free from these free market delusions, as David Spengli Goldman proves with his continuous ball licking of China and Huawei in particular. The option of simply refusing to do business with a-holes does not cross his mind. Let alone that it should be a point of discussion in a Western democracy and something to vote for or against.

Just saying...in Future Shock no person, no belief, no paradigm is safe anymore.

[Heracleum Persicum]

Future Shock is a crisis in and of itself. Hard to keep up. I'm not sure religion suffers much though. The metaphysical is tolerant of past, present and future and especially grows well on existential threats and stress overload. In some form or other.

Accelerated change adds broken dreams with a future harder to predict. Disillusionment and no assumption is free of charge. Shouldn't democracy, human rights, small government and the free market have solved most of our problems by now?

Seems to me next on the chopping block will be the globalizing free market. Communism has expired as a viable answer but centralized institutions, managerial and financial monopolies are growing everywhere. The libertarian instinct that government easily grows into a cancerous monster is a good one but has forgotten to pay attention to non-gvt monopolies that also emerge and become equally hideous and corrupting.

I remember Mr.P. expressing the opinion that it is always and only gvt interference that corrupts. If the free market is really left alone... no other corrupting monopolies will emerge. All will be fine. To me this sounds as naive as believing Communism will eventually work and that it failed only "because it was never really tried".

Economic freedom as a religious belief is coming to an end. People not only want to control their own territorial borders and have a democratic say on immigration policies, they will also start to question if businesses should have a default right to do business with anyone they want for the best price.

Examples are China, Meddle East and Russia. The globalized free market has made us dependent for our energy supplies on Mobster Russia and on some Meddle East Donkey States, for pharmaceuticals and tech parts on China. This makes our Western societies very vulnerable, as it turns out.

The business class elites always had a free pass doing whatever they want: that might be over soon.

Extra fuel is the moral-ethical question: should voters have a say on the limits of free market enterprise? I would vote in favor of completely disengaging from China, Russia, Iran and all Meddle East oil to make the Western Anglosphere completely self-sufficient. There is no universal law of nature that compels us to do business with every not-trustworthy crook and murderous a-hole just because the price is better. Unfortunately, the free-market fundamentalists and globalist whores with their religious beliefs are everywhere.

An exceptional set of brains is not a guarantee to stay free from these free market delusions, as David Spengli Goldman proves with his continuous ball licking of China and Huawei in particular. The option of simply refusing to do business with a-holes does not cross his mind. Let alone that it should be a point of discussion in a Western democracy and something to vote for or against.

Just saying...in Future Shock no person, no belief, no paradigm is safe anymore.

Yes, we looking at a "Future Shock".


Looking at history , "civilizations" have built their own world with their own norm, and normal, with all social, ethical, commercial etc laws and customs .. for their society, population, those civilizations had become the norm and the normal.

That we saw in Roman or Helenic times .. slave based free labour, rights only for "citizens" and not slaves etc etc .. in contrast to Persian Sassanid empire where economy was based on paid labour and "universal human right".

Later, Brits, Spaniard (and French) "discovering" Americas, exploiting Gold and wiping out the indigini was felt as "Normal" by civilization, Catholic church promoting (and leading) all this .. again, all this was felt "norm" by population, civilization of that episode.

In principle the concept did not changed With progress in history, one can see the Colonial Episode, Brits becoming biggest slave traders, America built on Slave labour .. Imagine JFK was talking freedom and liberty when at the same time America had 2 kind of water fountains, for whites and for blacks.

After WW2 , Western world built a new "civilization", those bad NAZI went back to Mars, faked the WW2 history, excuse being fighting communism, but in realty to keep the "Untermensch" where they belong, leading to present situation where Russians (claiming be Jews) occupying Palestinian Homes but the Palestinians are the terrorists. This was the "normal" last 100+ yrs

We now "exiting" this civilization of last 300 yrs .. entering new world .. a new Civilization

Now things changing .. 1978 our beloved Pomegranates started to not accept what the West called (their own) "World Order" .. "Orders", with western definition of human and all other rights, put in place by West to control the "Untermesch".

We now entering a "New Civilization" .. new Rules, new Ethics, new economic and social and human (-rights) rules ..

In that sense .. YES .. we looking at "Future Shock".
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[noddy]

nice attempt, i give it 4/10 , needs more monomania.

persia is suffering from future shock as much as anyone else is, birthrate plummeting, kids unfocused on what future they need to prepare for, because their is no future to prepare for - it hasnt materalised yet.

you better hope they stay isolated and self victimisedf like our beloved jews, because if they do join modernity in full force, they wil be fat and nihilistic in 1 generation .. tops.

just like everyone else.

[Heracleum Persicum]

nice attempt, i give it 4/10 , needs more monomania.

persia is suffering from future shock as much as anyone else is, birthrate plummeting, kids unfocused on what future they need to prepare for, because their is no future to prepare for - it hasnt materalised yet.

you better hope they stay isolated and self victimized like our beloved jews, because if they do join modernity in full force, they wil be fat and nihilistic in 1 generation .. tops.

just like everyone else.

noddy, 4get joining the modernity, you not aware what's happening

2 month ago, I hade the 6th Covid-19 shot in vancouver .. a month later, I received an email from Government of Canada, "Health Canada", to fill a questionnaire, long story short , last question in the questionnaire was :

What is your "gender" .. the answer should be ticked :

- I am a male
- I am a female
- I am neither male nor female
- I don't know what I am
- I don't want answer this question


And "head of Jesuit" Francis says Homos too can go to heaven and now can marry each other .. probably poor Jesus turning in his grave.

The LIBERALS drove Western civilization into sh*t, pretty much "f*cked".


The shooting wars we now seeing, Ukraine and Israel, are in reality liberalism (west) fighting conservatism .. mad mullahs, Patriarch Kirill , Trump on one side and self proclaimed Catholic Christian Zionist Biden on the other side.

World is being turned "upside down" .. this no regime change .. this civilization change .. we entering a new world .. big shocks ahead

https://www.rt.com/news/589900-us-sexua ... ansgender/

UN pushes back against Biden transgender proposal

Including transgender issues in discrimination laws would reportedly have “detrimental” effects on biological women

(In US) Outlawing Men and women separate toilets, showers .. only ONE unisex toilets, showers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ckout=true

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[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

How living inside our heads ruined modernity and instigated the meaning crisis........

[noddy]

What is your "gender" .. the answer should be ticked :

- I am a male
- I am a female
- I am neither male nor female
- I don't know what I am
- I don't want answer this question

did you get it right ?

[noddy]

How living inside our heads ruined modernity and instigated the meaning crisis........

hmmm

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Sorry, I think at this point blaming Descartes is apart of the crises itself.

Renatus, whose brain and body are amusingly buried in two different places, was a singular mathematician first and foremost. The bad philosophy stuff is what it is, but we survived modernity plenty long with it around.

[Parodite]

Mind-body duality is a biological perceptual experience, i.e. not introduced by philosophers and brainwashed through the times in our culture as a mere idea. Philosophers experience the same as anybody else, just made it their profession to make ordinary things sound complicated and profound. Verbal art.

Like 3D vision, mind-body duality is a normal perceptual experience. How 3D vision is generated is more a scientific question, less a philosophical one. Same is true for that infamous mind-body duality.

Turns out the brain combines and integrates two 2D images into a stereoscopic 3D image. Similarly mind-body duality is a functional distinction between the in-here and out-there; also a map with a form of "depth". This means it can feel like being a "ghost in a machine", or a soul in a body.

This mind-body theme runs through all times and all culture. Which also suggests and gives credence to the idea that it is more a biological-neurological perceptive reality than a mere philosophy and culturally driven “idea”.

These representational / analogous maps are necessary to function in the world. Both "ghost" and "machine" however are not different entities from different realms. Just functional distinctions on a global map.

I hope this killed off this age-old mind-body conundrum once and for all.
It is now also obvious why the question of how a ghost arises within a machine is a "hard problem": it is the wrong question.

Not that there are no legit tough questions and genuine hard problems... just that the above mind-body dualism and hard problem of consciousness isn’t one of them. False mysteries do harm and add to the crisis of meaning. Better questions and real mystery add valuable spice to meaning.

[Parodite]

How living inside our heads ruined modernity and instigated the meaning crisis........

To be fair, my above rant did not do much justice to the above link MFF posted, I didn't even read it, mea culpa. Now that I have, he has a point. Problem is that instead of critically looking at the core mechanism of this bifurcation and see where this leads to, he basically accepts it as is and tries to mend the divorce, recommends living with it.

To give back some mysterious irrational mind to matter but at the same time allow matter to keep us sane, rational and empirical enough to survive. He seems to try save the best of two worlds and make us "whole" again.

Obviously, I can't disagree more because I don't see this bifurcation between mind and matter as something fundamental to begin with. I also don't think the empirical mindset is something uniquely human. It is a necessary function available to all animals. Please don't make it sound when a predator hawk observes and aims at its prey down below, starts the dive... it is not doing empirical science.

Sort of new-agey belief that before science and tech really took off... we were all embedded in a near non-bifurcated wholesome mind-matter circle that was mysterious, irrational, rational and empirical all at the same time.

More likely, the “problem” is just the belief we can/should do all these things simultaneously. To swim, run, paint, think, make music, eat, write, feel the aweeee, be rational, irrational, dream, fix the lawn mower… all at the same time. Good luck with that. It just paralyses people.

[noddy]

the nature/nurture stuff always gets me with these kinds of analysis.

cultures change, and are very different, and have different outcomes.

yet people, are people, and havent changed really.

as a counter argument - the folks that dont get the duality of outside/inside ... mind and nature, are the ones that accuse you of making them think bad thoughts.

the folks whos every emotion, every feeling is an external fault.

[Parodite]

Yes, just sometimes all this harping about cultural marxism on campuses, the woke plague is too much implying we are all blank slates; anyone can write his/her dogma into our virgin brains. Randomly depending on where we end up being born in life, a culture will possess us from cradle to grave. Resistance is futile. Add the idea that free will is an illusion (at best a useful one) and the eternal victim is born.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

How living inside our heads ruined modernity and instigated the meaning crisis........

To be fair, my above rant did not do much justice to the above link MFF posted, I didn't even read it, mea culpa. Now that I have, he has a point. Problem is that instead of critically looking at the core mechanism of this bifurcation and see where this leads to, he basically accepts it as is and tries to mend the divorce, recommends living with it.

To give back some mysterious irrational mind to matter but at the same time allow matter to keep us sane, rational and empirical enough to survive. He seems to try save the best of two worlds and make us "whole" again.

Obviously, I can't disagree more because I don't see this bifurcation between mind and matter as something fundamental to begin with. I also don't think the empirical mindset is something uniquely human. It is a necessary function available to all animals. Please don't make it sound when a predator hawk observes and aims at its prey down below, starts the dive... it is not doing empirical science.

Sort of new-agey belief that before science and tech really took off... we were all embedded in a near non-bifurcated wholesome mind-matter circle that was mysterious, irrational, rational and empirical all at the same time.

More likely, the “problem” is just the belief we can/should do all these things simultaneously. To swim, run, paint, think, make music, eat, write, feel the aweeee, be rational, irrational, dream, fix the lawn mower… all at the same time. Good luck with that. It just paralyses people.

The counter is that empiricism IS uniquely human and that's because the human mind processes symbolic language and even for us it's severely limited. About 90% of our thinking is the same as what the predator hawk does. Our problem is that we don't appreciate nor respect that.......

[Parodite]

The counter is that empiricism IS uniquely human and that's because the human mind processes symbolic language and even for us it's severely limited. About 90% of our thinking is the same as what the predator hawk does. Our problem is that we don't appreciate nor respect that.......

Always a helpful thought: nature / reality / God / you know what I mean... seems to have no problem at all with anything that can amaze or baffle us.

All those unfathomable riddles... Isn't complexity amazing? What buckloads of yet unknown emergent properties are possible? What exactly and in reality are force fields, gravity in particular? And what about friggin consciousness?!! How does that baby fit in?!

Just to mention a few not unreasonable things to ask. Nature seems to answer: "Hu, what? You takkin' to me? Any problems? Yawn."

[Heracleum Persicum]

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1aYKCpV8PZI

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1aYKCpV8PZI

Interesting..... So is 'woke' a neo-conservative psy op?...........

[Nonc Hilaire]

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1aYKCpV8PZI

Interesting..... So is 'woke' a neo-conservative psy op?...........

Yes, in a Cloward-Piven/Communist/useful durian sort of way. They are forward agents for the Davos faction, and we see them being erased now.

You don’t find much wokishness in the Anglo-Saxon banking faction.

[Heracleum Persicum]

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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1aYKCpV8PZI

Interesting..... So is 'woke' a neo-conservative psy op ?...........

Probably Yes

As said before, this a "cultural" war .. it started first in US, by Neocons .. to fool Joe, to distract, opening a new front

30 yrs ago, they started with "Prayer in school", burning flag, abortion, and, now NO separate toilets and showers for male and females, transgender rubbish, etc etc .. poor Francis.

All that backfiring now .. The Global South, 6 billion of 7 billion world population NOT laughing anymore.

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ug ... 023-05-29/

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