301–310 of 468 posts
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"Thinking is the last remaining freedom, as long as you don't say all the things you think of out loud." Absolutely, right on both accounts. (Occasionally swearing under my breath sometimes gives the game away.)
That's one of the unmentioned beauties of being a programmer... you can swear all you want, and people just think your code won't compile :-)
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Which deity do you pick in that case? There are many of them.
I think you will find most theological traditions aka religions have a lot of common ground. So much so that you can actually abstract out lot of the ancient wisdom from the religion itself. The book "Happiness Hypothesis" by Johnathon Haidt examines this in detail if you wish to purse it further.
I started reading the literary classics early, like 3rd grade. They were far too mature for me, but that information at that age was a crash course in the true nature of this world and life itself. I started meditating in 5th grade and continue to this day - not the pop culture meditating I see sold today, but some old Indian guy I purposefully located with zero ego that taught me to calm and just be.
Do people not read to locate themselves in history? One of my earliest intellectual activities was locating myself in my cultural heritage, my place in society's hierarchy and how that level and those above and below me operate. Are you adrift in an ocean deep society you do not understand?
The time I am not working or supporting my family, I am continuing to research and learn how our society and world operate; it is deep complex and in many aspects hidden in legal terminology intended to confuse. But it is essential.
We do not live in a physically dominate world, our world is dominated by ideas and those ideas dictate everything that is and everything that will be. Until one is comfortable with their "most feared" thoughts they are candidates for exploitation with "scary possibilities of death and an after life".
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That has a lot of resonance for me. In this modern age, we are all kings, and there are vast industries to save us from ever being alone from our thoughts. For December, I quit sugar, social media, and video games. It's been really interesting to notice what state I'm in when I go to reach for those things. Sometimes it's just habit, but often it's because I'm uncomfortable or in distress and want to avoid those feel…
> In this modern age, we are all kings, and there are vast industries to save us from ever being alone from our thoughts. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit religious order, set up a daily ritual to help keep himself (and those in the order) centred: > To help me remember the five steps, I like to use a 5-Rs mnemonic: > Relish the moments that went well and all of the gifts I have today. > Request the Spirit to l…
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Show us an ascetic who would find this a walk in the park.
Everyone born before 1600? Or maybe anyone who has done winter survival training. Hunger and cold have been with us since the beginning. The spiritual and meditative practices we’re talking about here were developed when these things were just daily facts of life and like other animals we’re adapted to deal with them as a matter of course. Modern humans live lives of luxury unknown to even the wealthiest and most for…
It was more about questioning the relevance (and authenticity) of "deep mysteries" and "existence" etc. It was not about whether or not human beings can train themselves to endure such difficulties. Which they can, apparently.
When you said "it would be a cake walk for an ascetic" I thought that by ascetic you meant one who is into meditation and all such "deep realities". Not Wim Hof.
Nevertherless, I personally don't see any virtue in being hungry in -1 degree celsius, if I have food and a warm home. Except in case someone is making money out of it, like Wim.
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Would you believe someone who reports back? FWIW I have a friend who is deep into spirituality, still works at a FAANG but definitely feels like he can attain higher states of awareness in his meditations. I don’t see him active on social media, he leads a reasonably ascetic life and so on. This person doesn’t have much success in making others believe. At best, he gets ‘hey, I am happy that you’re happy’ from folks…
Just a comment regarding belief in the context of learning: a lot (in fact almost all) of learning is through our innately held beliefs. Without having beliefs we would be no different than an ML model, which just keeps adjusting weights according to the data it receives. Each of us has some beliefs, which "seems right" to us and this is what shapes our understanding of what we see around us, no matter what the "data…
Take the biases that we've heard about in image recognition where these ML models misclassify black people. If a person had done that you would accuse them of racist beliefs.
Why is the computer model so different? Because you don't want to believe that computers can reach consciousness? (I don't either at this point but time will tell. We don't really know enough - or I don't - about what consciousness is and how it works.)
Just my interpretation (of the Pascal quote), beginning with the full quote. > When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly…
With all the sociological data we have now, it’s almost certain that Pascal’s wager has never been more true for those looking to lead a meaningful life.
"Believe me or suffer for eternity!"
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I don't think what Pascal is trying to get through is that we should numb ourself to inner thoughts. On the contrary, to acknowldege them and if anything, spend more time contemplating. That is when we can learn about ourself, others, and the universe, if I may say. Working from home this entire year, I have tried to practice taking at least 15 minutes everyday, couple of times a day, laying down and just listening t…
Pascal is throwing light and expounding upon a weakness found in (most) people, that of depending on distractions to prevent themselves from dwelling on thoughts which remind them of their mortal nature. I didn't read his works enough, none apart from the above quote in fact, to comment on whether or not he recommends acknowledging our inner thoughts and contemplating on them. As for me, I feel real and lasting relie…
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Just a comment regarding belief in the context of learning: a lot (in fact almost all) of learning is through our innately held beliefs. Without having beliefs we would be no different than an ML model, which just keeps adjusting weights according to the data it receives. Each of us has some beliefs, which "seems right" to us and this is what shapes our understanding of what we see around us, no matter what the "data…
Are you sure that our beliefs aren't "just" (the appropriate equivalent) of a stimulus or data point that has really high weight, e.g. because it was created during childhood and constantly reinforced? Take the biases that we've heard about in image recognition where these ML models misclassify black people. If a person had done that you would accuse them of racist beliefs. Why is the computer model so different? Bec…
Otherwise, chatbots are very good at learning abusive and racist language. It's due to our belief that it's not right and decent that we train them using a bias. And it's only due to beliefs that we rein in the rogue AI which misclassifies black people.
Edit: If you still want to think of belief as an input node whose link has weight, then set the weight to infinite
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Perhaps thats is because ants and amoebas have to find food in a bid to continue thier existence. Its safe to asume that for them to be satiated (not just resting) is to die.
Yes! So one wonders if aboriginal foraging humans have a concept of enlightenment.
I'm fact, if you look at African tribes and their original lifestyle you will realize how little time they had to spend on getting food and how much time they were able to spend just being happy, playing, drinking hallucinogenic substances to get into an enlightening trance etc.